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HERODOTUS 


IBRARY  OF  '^^  «^  ^ 
UNIVERSAL  HISTORY 


•irtrk-tr 


CONTAINING  A  RECORD  OF  THE 
HUMAN  RACE  FROM  THE  EARLIEST 
HISTORICAL  PERIOD  TO  THE  PRES- 
ENT TIME  ^  ^  H  ^  H  ^ 
EMBRACING  A  GENERAL  SURVEY 
OF  THE  PROGRESS  OF  MANKIND  IN 
NATIONAL  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE,  CIVIL 
GOVERNMENT,  RELIGION,  LITERA- 
TURE, SCIENCE  AND  ART    H   ^  ^ 

COMPLETE    IN    EIGHT   (VOLUMES 


Com' 
and  W 


piled,  Arrangfd    IQDAPI        ^/VIITH     C~^  \      A  P?  P    Author  of  "  ILLUSTRATED  UNIVERSAL  HISTORY,' 
Wrillen  by lOIVrALL    OIVll    111     V^  L /A  1  \  L    and   "  COMPLEl  E    HISTORICAL    COMPENDIUM.' 

REVIEWED,  VERIFIED  AND  ENDORSED  BY  THE  PROFESSORS  OF 
HISTORY  IN  FIVE  AMERICAN  UNM'ERSITIES,  WITH  AN  INTRO- 
DUCTION ON  THE  EDUCATIONAL  VALUE  OF  HISTORICAL  STUDY 

BY 

MOSES  COIT  TYLER,   A.M.,    L.H.D. 

Professor  of  Amkkican  History  ix  Cornell  ITnivhrsitv. 


•NOT  TO  KNOW  WHAT  HAPPENED  BEFORE  WE  WERE  BORN  IS 
TO  REMAIN  ALWAYS  A  CHILD;  FOR  WHAT  WERE  THE  LIFE 
OF  MAN  DID  WE  NOT  COMBINE  PRESENT  EVENTS  WITH  THE 
RECOLLECTIONS  OF  PAST  AGES  I"— CICEKO. 


Volujue  I. — Ancient   Orie7ital  Nations 

Illustratei*   With    Maps,    Portraits  anp   Views 


NEW  YORK 

R.  S.  PEALE      J.  A.  HILL 

1897 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  \'ear  1889, 

By  ISRAEL   SMITH  CLARE, 
in  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 

Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1893, 

By  ISRAEL   SMITH  CLARE, 
in  the  office  of  tlie  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 

Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1896, 

By  ISRAEL  SMITH  CLARE, 
in  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 

Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1897, 

By  ISRAEL  SMITH  CLARE, 
in  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


SfacR 
Annex 

5015660 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  VALUE 

OI'"  THE 

STUDY  OV  HLSTORY. 

BY  MOSES  COIT  TYLER, 

Professor  of  American  Historj-  in  Cornell  University. 


JN"  order  to  do  justice  to  the  claims  of  historical  study,  it  can  never  be 
necessary  for  us  to  depreciate  those  of  any  other  branch  of  learning. 
Properh-  considered,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  rivalrj^  between  difTerent 
spheres  of  knowledge ;  only  emulation,  a  noble  and  helpful  emulation. 
All  real  knowledge  is  good,  being  in  one  way  or  another  a  source  of 
power  and  happiness.  The  various  realms  of  things  known  or  knowable  are  but 
co-equal  and  fraternal  states  in  that  vast  confederation  which  we  may  call  the  republic 
of  science.  No  single  member  of  this  confederation  is  strong,  none  is  sufficient, 
standing  alone.     Each  is  necessary  to  all,  all  are  necessary  to  each. 

While,  therefore,  no  one  study  may  assert  for  itself  the  whole  of  what  is  valuable, 
every  study  doubtless  has  its  own  special  value ;  and  this  value,  as  in  the  case  of  a 
study  like  history,  it  may  sometimes  be  worth  our  while  to  place  clearly  before  our 
minds,  modestly,  tolerantly,  and  for  the  rightful  purpose  of  forming  a  just  idea  of  the 
particular  good  we  ought  to  expect  and  to  work  for,  in  our  pursuit  of  it. 

I. 

Probably  that  use  of  the  study  of  history  which  will  first  occur  to  most  persons, 
is  the  one  suggested  by  the  common  conception  of  history  as  an  enonnous  body  of 
facts  about  the  past, — the  effort  to  know  and  retain  a  considerable  ninnber  of  the.se 
facts  being  regarded  as  a  fine  gymnastic  exercise  for  the  faculty  of  memory.  It  is, 
indeed,  quite  astonishing  how  great  a  multitude  of  historical  details — dates,  names, 
and  other  preci.se  items  about  persons,  cities,  nations,  armies,  political  parties,  institu- 
tions, and  so  forth — -almost  any  person  is  capable  of  carrying  in  his  memory,  if  only 
he  patiently  sto.es  and  trains  it  in  that  way.  Moreover,  no  one  will  dt-ny  that  there 
is  much  convenience  and  delight  in  the  possession  of  a  memory  like  that,  —  a  memory 
enriched  with  precise  and  various  historical  facts,  all  labeled,  and  pigeon-holed,  and 
ready  for  .service  at  a  moment's  call.  Certainly,  a  brilliant  accomplishment  this  for 
conversation  ;  a  weapon  of  victory  for  public  speech  ;  in  hours  of  loneliness  and  suffer- 
ing, a  great  solace, — all  of  which  may  be  seen  in  the  ca.ses  of  certain  famous  men 
in  our  country  who  had  such  a  memory,  as  John  Quincy  Adams,  Theodore  Parker, 
Charles  Sumner,   (^.arfield. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  particular  u.se  of  historical  study  is  somewhat  discredited 
among  persons  of  mature  .sense,  whenever  it  is  associated  with  either  of  two  practical 
mistakes,  to  which,  indeed,  young  students  of  history  are  liable.  One  of  these  mis- 
takes arises  from  a  lack  of  discrimination  as  to  the  relative  value  of  different  historical 

(iii) 


Mmmm 


iv  PREFACE. 

facts ;  the  other  from  the  notion  that  the  work  of  memorizing  historical  facts  is  the 
principal  part  of  historical  study.  It  can  hardly  be  wise  to  make  the  memorj-  serve 
the  purpose  of  an  old  fashioned  garret  in  a  country  house,  —  a  receptacle  for  all 
sorts  of  odds  and  ends  of  property,  precious  and  worthless.  Surely,  .such  indiscrim- 
inate memorizing  must  be  a  waste  of  energy,  and  the  perversion  of  a  noble  faculty. 
What  is  the  use  of  making  an  effort  to  remember  what  is  useless?  Besides,  however 
valuable  it  may  be  to  store  the  memory  with  well  selected  dates  and  names  and  other 
historical  items,  this  at  best  belongs  among  the  lower  and  more  mechanic  u.ses  of 
history. 

With  these  qualifications  upon  the  primary  claim  put  forward  on  behalf  of  his- 
torical study,  we  may  now  pass  on  to  consider  some  claims  which  point  to  mental 
and  even  spiritual  discipline  of  a  far  higher  and  more  complex  kind. 

II. 

One  of  these  higher  benefits  may  be  described  as  that  of  training  the  critical 
faculty,  through  the  effort  to  test  the  evidence  for  and  against  particular  historical 
facts,  or  what  are  alleged  to  be  such.  Perhaps  the  very  hardest  thing  to  get  at  in 
this  world  is  the  truth,  the  very  truth,  especially  the  very  truth  concerning  the  past 
transactions  of  the  human  race.  From  this  point  of  view,  it  is  plain  that  the  study 
of  history  is  something  more  than  the  pas,sive  reading  of  certain  finished  and  fasci- 
nating books,  like  Livy,  for  in.stance,  or  Gibbon,  or  Thiers,  or  Macaulay,  or  Pres- 
cott,  or  Parkman  ;  it  is  indeed,  the  resolute  and  attentive  application  of  the  whole 
mind  to  an  innnen.se  and  complicated  subject, —  a  process  which  cannot  be  carried  on 
very  long  without  our  running  up  again.st  questions  of  disputed  fact.  To  deal  with 
these  questions  in  a  manner  to  satisfy  a  truth-loving  mind,  it  will  be  necessary  for 
us  to  look  keenly  into  problems  of  conflicting  testimony,  of  personal  character,  of 
the  validity  of  documents,  of  the  meaning  of  words,  of  the  right  method  of  con- 
struction. I  am  not  now  speaking  of  the  labors  of  professional  historians,  the  intri- 
cacy and  arduon.sne.ss  of  which  are  admitted  to  be  great,  just  in  proportion  to  the 
quality  of  their  results.  Even  pupils  at  school,  however,  and  college  students,  and 
the  members  of  historical  clubs,  and  .solitary  readers  of  hi.story,  if  they  would 
pursue  this  study  in  the  wisest  and  most  fruitful  way,  must  all  l)e,  to  .some  extent, 
historical  critics ;  mu.st  be  alert,  inqui.sitive,  cautious,  never  credulous,  always  intol- 
erant of  .slovenly  ways ;  and  as  far  as  pos.sible,  they  must  try  the  text  they  are 
reading  by  earlier  te.Kts,  and  especially  by  those  nearest  to  the  times  that  happen  to 
be  under  consideration. 

Who  is  likely  to  overstate  the  educational  value  of  such  a  method  of  study? 
On  the  moral  side,  how  great  it  must  be  !  It  is  produced  and  is  nourished  by  a 
conviction  of  the  incomparable  worth  and  sacredness  of  mere  truth  in  it.self,  as  against 
all  baser  stuff  in  the  form  of  half-truth,  guess  work,  fables,  or  lies,  and  this  convic- 
tion is  sure  to  grow  and  to  strengthen  under  such  honest  toil  in  its  service.  On  the 
purely  mental  side,  how  great  nrust  be  the  effect  of  such  study,  —  since  it  calls  forth 
and  taxes  powers  so  important  as  those  of  analysis  and  comparison,  nicety  of  verbal 
sense,  literary  insight,  logical  acuteness  and  precision,  .soundness  of  judgment,  and 
saving  common  sen.se. 

III. 

In  the  next  place,  it  should  not  be  overlooked  that  the  mental  and  moral  dis- 
cipline involved  in  the  .study  of  history,  is  of  a  kind  even  broader  and  more  complex 
than  that  retjuired  for  the  ascertaiiunent  and  verification  of  particular  historical  facts. 


I'REFA  CE.  V 

Tluit  alone,  as  we  have  just  seen,  is  a  great  task,  callinu;-  for  fine  and  strong  powers 
of  mind  ;  it  is  a  task  that  can  perhaps  never  be  perfectly  done  by  any  finite  being  ; 
and  yet,  even  that,  when  it  is  done  as  well  as  we  can  do  it,  is  not  the  end  of  his- 
torical study,  but  rather  the  beginning  of  it.  For,  after  you  liave  verified  and 
defined  your  facts,  comes  the  still  more  subtle  process  of  discovering  their  causal 
relations, —  the  great  play  of  influence  among  human  events,  the  interdependence  of 
events,  the  action  and  reaction  and  counteraction  of  events.  Of  course,  to  do  this 
sort  of  work  hastily,  recklessly,  with  that  tone  of  easy  infallibility  which  some  his- 
torical students  have  when  passing  judgment  upon  groups  of  facts  in  relation  to  the 
past,  is  probably  not  very  hard, —  at  least  for  persons  who  can  do  it  all;  but  to  one 
who  realizes  the  worthlessness,  the  misleading  character,  of  all  mere  assumption  in 
statements  professing  to  be  historical,  and  how  hard  it  must  be  even  approximately 
to  discover  the  actual  relations  of  events,  it  will  be  obvious  that,  aside  from  the  in- 
trinsic value  of  such  generalizations,  is  the  disciplinary  value  of  the  mental  and 
spiritual  process  of  arriving  at  them.  Certainly,  to  generalize  wisely  from  sound  his- 
torical data,  is  a  great  exercise  of  the  philo.sophic  powers  ;  it  is  a  test  and  a  devel- 
opment  of    broad-mindedness,   lucidity,   and    vigor  in  reasoning. 

IV. 

Another  benefit  from  historical  study  will  occur  to  us,  when  we  reflect  that  such 
study  compels  one  to  investigate  and  to  reason  within  the  realm,  not  of  the  exact  and 
of  the  ab.solute,   but  of  the  approximate  and  the  probable. 

No  doubt  there  is  a  peculiar  educational  value  in  the  study  of  those  sciences  in 
which  the  data  are  precise  or  absolute ;  in  which  the  conclusions  are  so,  likewise. 
Hi.story,  however,  deals  with  data  of  a  different  kind, — with  mixed  deeds,  and  mixed 
motives,  and  traits  of  character,  and  experiences  of  human  beings  ;  looking  back  into 
the  past,  it  draws  some  general  conclusions  from  these  data  and  applies  them  to  the  pres- 
ent and  the  future  ;  it  aims  to  formulate  some  general  principles  relating  to  the  collective 
human  life  of  this  world,  to  government,  to  the  working  of  the  social  organism.  But 
whatever  history  requires  of  its  student  or  does  for  him,  it  keeps  him  mostly  within 
the  sphere  of  the  approximate  and  the  probable.  You  cannot  weigh  a  human  motive 
or  impulse  as  precisely  as  you  can  a  chemical  substance.  In  much  of  >our  work  as 
an  hi.storian,  you  have  to  balance  one  probabilitj'  against  another  .  to  estimate  the 
operation  of  spiritual  forces,  to  deal  with  the  inscrutable  mysteries  of  personal 
character.  In  so  many  parts  of  your  work,  you  are  obliged  to  reason  with  caution^ 
.slowly,  circumspectly,  not  dogmatically ;  and  to  realize  the  limitations  upon  the 
definitene-ss  and  certainty  of  many  of  your  conclusions. 

Well,  is  there  any  special  value  in  such  training  as  this?  It  seems  to  me  that, 
in  a  rather  peculiar  sense,  this  gives  the  ver>'  training  required  for  real  life  ;  since  in  real 
life  we  are  in  the  sphere  not  of  the  absolute,  but  of  the  relative,  and  we  luue  to  deal 
with  the  very  problems  which  the  historian  has  to  deal  with,  —  human  character, 
human  feelings  and  motives,  probabilities,  and  other  data  more  or  less  indefinite.  I 
would  say  no  word  to  imply  any  disparagement  of  the  educational  value  of  mathematics, 
for  example.  It  has  its  value,  unrivaled  in  its  kind  ;  but  he  who  .should  apply  the 
methods  of  mathematical  reasoning  to  the  questions  which  come  up  between  man  and 
man  in  real  life,  would  often  make  most  absurd  mistakes  and  go  far  astray.  Histor- 
ical study,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  study  of  human  nature  on  a  broad  field,  and  for 
all  ages ;  it  is  exactly  the  sort  of  training  which  helps  us  to  know  persons  and  affairs 
in  real  life,  the  great  types  of  human  character,  the  limited  worth  of  testimony,  the 
play    of    pa.ssion    in    interfering    with   reasonable    and   prudent   conduct,    the  probable 


vi  PREFACE. 

consequences  of  any  particular  set  of  outward  conditions.  Histors-  is  the  great  teacher 
of  human  nature  by  means  of  object  lessons  drawn  from  the  whole  recorded  life 
of  human  nature. 

V. 

This  brings  us  naturally  to  the  fifth  benefit  to  be  got  from  historical  study,  — 
the  cultivation  of  fair-mindedness  as  a  habit,  and  the  suppression  of  intellectual 
partisanship  with  respect  to  all  subjects  whatsoever. 

No  one  can  pursue  this  study  in  the  right  waj-,  or  with  any  real  success,  who 
■does  not  learn  to  acquire  the  mental  attitude,  not  of  an  attorney  standing  for  one 
side  of  the  question,  but  of  a  judge  standing  for  what  is  true  on  both  sides.  The 
historical  spirit  is  the  judicial  spirit.  However  vast  may  be  his  learning,  however 
splendid  his  style,  whoever  writes  history  in  a  partisan  fashion,  spoils  to  that  extent 
the  genuineness  and  value  of  his  work,  as  any  one  may  observe  by  the  brilliant 
examples  of  Macaulay  and  Froude. 

We  must  not,  we  cannot,  tolerate  in  history,  what  we  are  obliged  to  tolerate  in 
contemporary  comment.  Such  comment  is  almost  inevitabh-  colored  by  contemporary 
passion,  is  biased  this  way  and  that  through  contemporary  prejudice,  through  the 
stormy  likes  and  dislikes  that  are  irrepressible  among  men  actually  engaged  in  the 
conflicts  of  their  own  time,  and  having  great  personal  interests  at  stake.  But  when 
it  comes  to  history,  we  demand  something  different.  History  is  the  comment  made 
afterward,  when  the  fight  is  over  and  ended  and  the  combatants  are  cold  in  their 
graves ;  and  the  duty  of  liLstory  is  to  hear  all  .sides  and  all  persons,  to  weigh  all 
pleas,  to  sift  all  testimonies,  to  be  fair  to  all.  If,  with  regard  to  living  controvensies, 
this  attitude  of  fairness  between  opposite  persons  and  opinions  is  almost  impossible  to 
attain,  it  is  by  no  means  easy  of  attaiimient  even  with  regard  to  dead  controversies  ; 
it  is,  for  every  topic  in  history,  one  of  the  la.st  and  choicest  results  of  .spiritual 
discipline. 

I  do  not  know  any  other  study  more  likely  than  the  study  of  history,  to  help 
us  to  acquire  intellectual  poise,  justice  in  thought  and  word,  freedom  from  the  warp 
of  undue  sympathy  or  antipathy,  the  judicial  habit.  And  this,  after  all,  is  a  quality 
of  great  influence  and  esteem  in  this  world,  overridden,  as  it  is,  with  partisanship  of 
all  sorts,   and  yet  conscious  that  there  is  a  mental  attitude  nobler  and  wiser. 

VI. 

For  the  .sixth  benefit  to  be  got  from  historical  study,  I  would  call  attention  to 
its  incomparable  u.se  in  enlarging  one's  mental  horizon. 

He  who  does  not  know  history  must  have  a  very  limited  mental  horizon — a  hor- 
izon as  wide  only  as  the  time  during  which  he  has  lived.  The  whole  vast  realm  of 
the  past  is  to  him  as  if  it  never  had  been  :  he  knows  only  what  has  been  done  and 
enjoyed  and  suffered  by  the  human  family  .since  he  arrived  here.  Even  in  the 
case  of  the  oldest  man,  what  is  that  by  comparison  with  all  the  years,  decades, 
centuries,  epochs,  which  have  rolled  over  this  planet  before  the  sound  of  his  footstep 
was  heard  upon  it,  and  which  have  been  crowded  with  stupendous  tran.sactions  that 
he  is  totally  ignorant  of  except  by  .some  .sort  of  hearsay,  by  broken  fragments  of 
knowledge  picked  up  from  casual  tradition  ? 

The  man  who  knows  only  the  time  immediately  around  him,  is  in  a  mental  con- 
dition somewhat  like  that  of  the  man  who  knows  only  the  place  immediately  around 
him — the  man  who  has  never  traveled,  who  knows  nothing  of  other  neighborhoods 
and  other  peoples.     Such  a  man  must  have  a  very  false  notion  of  himself  and  others; 


PREFACE.  vii 

his  niiiul  can  hardly  fail  to  be  full  of  local  prejudice  and  conceit  :  he  lacks  the  nec- 
essan,-  standards  by  which  to  estimate  his  own  size  and  quality  and  that  of  the  men 
and  things  around  him.  Such  a  man  is  necessarily  provincial,  parochial  ;  his  intellect 
is  the  intellect  of  a  villager.  So,  the  man  who  knows  but  little  of  human  time,  ex- 
cept what  has  elapsed  since  his  own  birth,  is  provincial-minded  with  respect  to  vast 
tracts  of  human  experience  ;  his  mental  horizon  is  necessarily  limited  to  the  petty  cir- 
cle of  time  which  surrounds  his  own  life  in  the  world.  To  such  a  man  history  comes 
with  its  power  to  enlarge  his  own  horizon  bj-  annexing  to  it  the  horizons  of  all  the 
generations  before  him.  History  is  for  time,  what  travel  is  for  space  ;  it  is  an  intel- 
lectual journey  acro.ss  oceans  and  continents  of  duration,  and  of  ages  both  remote 
from  our  own  and  vitalized  and  enriched  by  stupendous  events.  There  is  an  old  aph- 
orism to  the  effect  tliat,  "ignorance  of  what  has  been  done  in  the  world  before  he 
came  into  it,  leaves  a  man  alwaj^s  a  child."  This,  perhaps,  is  but  a  far-away  echo  of 
the  saying  of  the  Chinese  moralist,  Lao-Tse :  "Man  is  an  infant  born  at  midnight, 
who,  when  he  sees  the  sun  rise,  thinks  that  yesterday  has  never  existed."  To  him  who 
has  not  studiously  opened  those  books  which  tell  of  .the  world's  yesterday,  it  is  as 
though  the  world  had  never  had  a  yesterday  —  as  though  the  world  had  begun  only 
when  he  began. 

There  have  been  many  attempts  to  define  the  es.sential  difference  between 
man  and  the  other  animals  known  to  us  here.  What  is  to  be  thought  of  this  defi- 
nition ?  Man  is  the  history-knowdng  animal  —  the  only  animal  that  can  know  the 
pa.st.  Therefore,  our  conscious  and  cultivated  relation  to  the  past,  through  historical 
stud}^  develops  in  us  as  human  beings  that  very  attribute  which  distinguishes  us 
from  those  animals  that  are  called  the  brutes. 

VII. 

Perhaps  the  most  impressive  consideration  touching  the  benefit  to  be  derived 
from  historical  studj-,  is  the  one  which  still  remains  to  be  mentioned;  historj'  enables 
each  generation  of  men  to  profit,  if  they  will,  by  the  experience  of  their  predeces- 
sors,—  especially  to  avoid  their  costliest  and  most  painful  mi.stakes.  Without  historv% 
nearly  all  the  practical  wi.sdom  of  mankind,  gained  through  iiniumerable  blunders  and 
mishaps,  would  be  lost,  and  the  same  blunders  and  the  same  mishaps  would  have  to 
be  repeated  and  to  be  suffered  over  and  over  again  on  the  part  of  successive  genera- 
tions ignorant  of  what  had  happened  before. 

Let  us  suppo.se  that  the  human  family  should  now  agree  that  history  is  an  un- 
desirable branch  of  knowledge  ;  that  it  should  no  longer  be  cultivated  or  taught ;  that 
all  the  books  of  history  which  have  been  written,  from  Herodotus  down  to  Ranke  and 
Stubbs  and  George  Bancroft,  should  be  burned  up,  and  that  no  more  should  be 
written  ;  that  even  the  documentary  sources  of  historj^  should  be  destroyed.  What 
would  be  the  effect  of  this  gigantic  piece  of  Vandalism  ?  Of  cour,se,  before  many 
j'ears,  the  men  who  now  know  something  of  the  past  would  be  dead,  and  would  have 
left  no  succes.sors  to  their  knowledge  ;  and,  gradually,  nearly  all  remembrance  of  for- 
mer times  and  of  the  men  and  the  deeds  and  the  sufferings  of  former  times,  of  their 
mi.stakes  and  triumphs  and  failures,  would  be  blotted  out.  Nearly  all  the  le.s.sons 
taught  by  the  experience  of  the  human  family  would  be  forgotten.  Consequentlj',  to 
a  large  extent,  progress  would  cease;  each  generation,  knowing  but  little  of  what 
men  had  learned  before  themselves,  would  have  to  begin  nearly  all  experiments  over 
again ;  and  each  generation  would  be  liable  to  keep  on  repeating  the  errors  of  its 
predecessors,     treading     over     again     the    same    round    of    blundering    attempts    and 


viii  PREFACE. 

disastrous  failures.  Life  itself,  or  what  is  called  civilization,  would  still  be  a  laborious 
march,  but  it  would  be  a  march  in  a  treadmill,  wherein  the  feet  seem  to  move,  and 
steps  seem  to  be  taken,  but  no  advance  is  made. 

Whenever  one  is  inclined  to  rate  very  low  the  utility  of  historical  study,  it  may 
be  well  for  him  to  recall  the  fact  that  all  human  progress  depends  on  each  generation 
starting  with  the  advantage  of  the  wisdom  gained  and  accumulated  by  all  previous 
experience,  and  that  history  is  the  temple  in  which  the  records  of  this  experience  are 
stored.  Burn  down  the  temple,  and  you  thereby  destroy  some  of  the  things  that  are 
essential  to  further  progress. 

People  who  do  not  know  history,  are  apt  to  be  presumptuous  and  rash  in  their 
political  methods.  They  go  on  advocating  errors  that  were  exploded  ages  ago  ;  try- 
ing political  or  indu.strial  or  financial  experiments  that  have  been  tried  and  found 
futile  and  disastrous  times  without  number ;  taking  false  steps  which  their  ancestors 
had  taken  before  them  and  had  found  to  be  steps  toward  folly  and  misery  ;  mak- 
ing civilization  itself  to  seem  no  longer  a  stream  of  onward  progress,  but  a  mere 
whirlpool,  its  currents  spinning  with  men  and  institutions  round  and  round  in  a 
fierce  motion,  until  at  la.st  they  all  go  down  together  into  some  central  gulf  of 
darkness. 

One  of  the  greatest  and  most  inspiring  teachers  of  history  known  among  us  dur- 
ing the  past  forty  years  has  for  his  book-plate  this  motto:  "  Disci  pulus  est  prioris 
posterior  dies."  "To-day  is  the  pupil  of  yesterday."  How  much  would  To-day 
know,  if  it  were  not  the  pupil  of  Yesterday?  But  it  is  chiefly  through  what  we  call 
history,  that  Yesterday  is  able  to  comminiicate  to  its  pupil  the  wi.sdom  which  it  has 
hoarded.  Moreover,  it  is  because  To-day  leams  wisdom  from  Yesterday,  that  it  is 
able  to  teach  wisdom  to  To-morrow  ;  and  it  is,  also,  by  the  same  means.  There  are 
some  people  who  have  so  intense  an  interest  in  the  immediate  and  tangible  facts  of 
life,  that  they  are  accustomed  to  sneer  at  the  past, — calling  it  the  dead  past.  After 
all,  however,  the  pa.st  is  not  dead,  except  to  persons  who  are  ignorant  of  it,  or  who 
are  themselves  dead  in  their  own  thinking  concerning  it.  Through  the  power  of 
history,  the  past  does  not  die  ;  it  is  gifted  with  a  perpetual  life,  and  it  reaches  for- 
ward with  a  strong  and  helpful  hand  into  the  times  that  now  are  and  are  to  be. 

I  remember  that  once  a  student  of  mine,  in  a  thesis  which  he  was  reading  to 
me,  used  a  pretty  figure  about  history.  "History,"  said  he,  "is  only  a  stern  light 
on  the  ship  in  which  we  are  making  life's  voyage."  I  asked  him  to  consider 
whether  he  was  quite  right  in  describing  history  as  "  only  a  stern  light."  Of  course, 
even  a  stern  light  is  something,  but  it  is  not  all  that  our  life-ship  needs.  How 
about  a  bow  light,  also, — a  light  that  may  throw  some  gleam  acro.ss  the  waters  into 
which  we  are  advancing?  So,  even  though  it  might  hurt  the  neatness  of  the  image, 
we  should  probably  improve  its  accuracy,  by  saying,  that  history  is  not  only  a  stem 
light,  but  a  bow  light  as  well :  it  flashes  its  rays  far  back  over  those  rough  waters 
through  which  our  ship  has  been  ploughing,  and  it  throws  at  least  some  illumination 
forward  upon  the  deeps  of  time  toward  which  we   are  about  to  sail. 

vin. 

Upon  the  whole,  then,  it  may  fairly  be  said,  that  by  withdrawing  now  and  then 
from  the  present,  ahd  by  making  tours  of  studious  obsen-ation  into  the  pa.st,  we 
greatly  enlarge  our  knowledge  and  our  capacity  for  knowledge  ;  we  teach  ourselves 
toleration,  and  even  sympathy,  for  types  of  per.son  and  .society,  for  opinions  and  for 
courses    of    action,    quite  unlike  our  own  ;  we  become  more  truly  catholic  and  cosmo- 


PREFACE.  ix 

politan  ;  we  become  more  modest,  too,  by  realizing  that  inifj^hty  persons  and  mighty 
peoples  have  lived  in  this  world  and  left  it  ages  before  we  came  into  it  ;  we  learn  to 
understand  t)etter  our  own  place  in  the  general  movement  of  time  and  events,  and 
how  to  adjust  ourselves  to  both  for  the  greater  service,  for  the  more  perfect  happi- 
ness, of  ourselves  and  others. 

If,  indeed,  this  he  a  just  account  of  the  matter,  perhaps  we  .shall  not  deem  it  an 
extravagance  to  say,  as  was  lately  .said  by  a  sober-minded  English  critic,  that  "his- 
tory is  the  central  .study  among  human  studies,  capable  of  illuminating  and  enrich- 
ing all  the  rest." 

IX. 

I  should  be  .sorry  to  come  to  the  end  of  this  discu.ssiou  without  a  word  as  to 
the  importance  of  arranging  for  the  study  of  history  upon  a  wi.se  plan,  that  is, 
upon  a  generous  and  a  comprehensive  plan.  Perhaps  in  no  other  study  are  pettiness 
and  provincialism  more  incongruous  than  in  this  stud}'.  Not  even  patrioti.sni  is  a 
sufficient  justification  for  limiting  our  historical  readings  to  our  own  countrj-.  We 
Americans  have  a  right  to  be  glad  and  proud  o\'er  the  strong  enthusiasm  for  the 
nation  which  now  fills  even.-  part  of  il.  One  manifestation  of  this  robust  patriotic 
ardor  is  to  be  .seen  in  the  extraordinary  interest  now  felt  among  us  in  American  his- 
tory. Never  before  has  American  history  been  so  much  written,  or  so  well  written; 
never  before  has  it  been  so  eagerly  studied.  This  is  well.  Histor^^  like  charity, 
should  begin  at  home;  but  neither  charity-  nor  history  should  end  there.  Our  pres- 
ent danger  is  of  so  magnifying  the  importance  of  the  history  of  our  own  country, 
as  to  forget  the  importance  of  attending  to  that  of  other  countries  al.so.  The  present 
popularity  of  American  hi.storj-  is  really  a  thing  of  recent  growth.  I  can  well  re- 
member when  it  was  difficult  to  convince  Americans  that  American  history  was 
not  only  important  but  fascinating, — even  by  comparison  with  the  history-  of  mod- 
ern Europe,  or  of  ancient  and  mediaeval  times.  Apparenth',  this  truth  has  l)een 
at  last  so  well  learned  b}'  us,  that  another  truth  is  now  liable  to  be  forgotten, 
namely,  the  intellectual  harm  of  a  too  exclusive  stud}-  of  American  history. 
Even  American  history  cannot  be  properly  learned,  if  learned  altogether  apart  from 
other  history.  "Without  clear  notions  of  general  history,"  said  Edward  Freeman, 
"the  history  of  particular  countries  can  never  be  rightly  understood."  To  no  other 
country,  perhaps,  is  this  remark  more  applicable  than  it  is  to  our  own.  Why  our 
ancestors  came  to  America,  and  how,  and  what  ideas  they  brought  with  them,  and 
what  sorts  of  people  they  were,  and  what  they  did  here,  and  how  they  fared  in  the 
land,  and  how  they  were  interfered  with  and  helped  or  hindered  by  the  peoples  of 
western  Europe  from  among  whom  they  had  come,  and  how  at  last  they  threw  off 
such  interference,  and  how  they  have  got  on  since  then  with  themselves  and  with 
the  rest  of  the  world,  and  how  they  stand  to-day  as  regards  all  these  matters, — are, 
indeed,  the  great  topics  of  what  we  call  American  history,  but  they  are  likewise 
topics  of  European  history  as  well.  We  commonh-  think  of  American  history  as  be- 
ginning with  the  year  1492.  These  four  centuries  of  American  historj-  cannot  be 
truly  known  by  any  one  who  does  not  also  know  something  really  considerable  of 
the  histories  of  Spain.  France,  Holland,  and  England,  during  the  same  time.  For  us 
to  stud}'  American  history  as  a  detached  and  an  i.solated  experience,  is  to  study  it 
unwisely, —  .so  unwisely,  in  fact,  as  to  insure  our  failure  in  grasping  its  real  mean- 
ing. 

If,  however,  we  caiuiot  understand  American  histor>'  without  knowing  modem 
European    histor>-.    neither    can    we   know    modern    European    history    without    a    fair 


X  PREFACE. 

knowledge  of  the  histoty  of  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages  and  in  the  ancient 
times.  But  how  shall  we  know  the  history  of  mediaeval  and  of  ancient  Europe,  un- 
less we  become  acquainted  with  the  remoter  races  from  whom  these  earliest 
Europeans  were  derived,  and  the  countries  from  which  they  came,  and  the  ideas  they 
broi:ght  with  them  thence,  and  their  subsequent  relations  therewith  ? 

Thus,  we  reach  the  broad  principle  that,  as  there  is  a  certain  unity  in  the  life 
of  the  human  family,  so  there  is  a  certain  unity  in  its  history  also;  that  uo  nation 
has  ev^er  lived  without  an  original  kinship  with  other  nations,  without  more  or  less 
contact  with  other  nations,  without  having  its  destinies  interfered  with  and  in- 
fluenced b\-  other  nations.  Consequently,  no  part  of  history  can  be  truly  known 
without  knowing  something  of  all  parts.  The  ideal  of  the  historical  student  .should 
be  to  know  the  life  of  his  own  country  as  a  constituent  part  of  the  general  life  of 
mankind.  Thus,  the  stud}'  of  American  history  mu.st  be  preceded  or  at  least  accom- 
panied by  the  study  of  Universal    History. 


Uio^-^   (jtrU-  c^^^ 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION. 


History,  Its  Departments,  Aids  and  Divisions. — 
Its  Sources. — Races  of  Mankind. — Origin  of  Civili- 
zation.— Historical  Nations. — Oriental    and    Euro- 


pean Civilization. — Forms  of  Government. — Varie- 
ties of  Religion. — Ethnological  Table  of  the  Cau- 
casion  Race 25-34. 


Part  I.— Ancient  History— Vol.  I. 


CHAPTER   I.— ANCIENT   EGYPT. 


SECTION  I. 

The  Country  and  People, 41-42 

Egj'ptian  Ci\nlization  and  History  the  Oldest. — 
Fertility  of  the  Nile  Valley  and  Cause. — Origin  and 
Charadter  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians. — Geographi- 
cal Divisions  of  Ancient  Egypt. — Chief  Cities. 

SECTION  II. 

Sources  of  Egyptian  History 43-44 

Ancient  Eg>-ptian  Myths. — Historical  Writings 
of  Herodotus,' Diodorus,  Eratosthenes,  Apollodo- 
rus,  and  Manetho. — Modern  Discovery  of  the  Ro- 
setta  Stone  and  Deciphering  of  Hieroglyphic  In- 
scriptions.— Difference  Among  Modem  Egyptolo- 
gists as  to  the  Antiquity  of  Egypt. 

SECTION  III. 

Political  History, 44-62 

Periods  of  Egj'ptian  History. — Founding  of  the 
First  Dynasty  at  Memphis  by  Menes. — Contempo- 
rary Dynasties. — Fourth  Dynasty  at  Mei:iphis  and 
the  Great  Pyramids. — High  Civilization  under  the 
Fourth  Dynasty. — Contemporary  Dynasties. — Five 
Kingdoms  in  Egypt. — Great  Power  of  Thebes. — 
Conquest  of  Lower  Egypt  by  the  Shepherd  Kings. 
— Greatness  of  Thebes  under  the  Twelfth  Dynasty. 
— The  Labyrinth  and  Lake  Moeris. — Conquest  of 
Upper  Egypt  by  the  Shepherd  Kings. — End  of  the 
Old  Empire. — ^The  Middle  Empire  under  the  Shep- 
herd Kings. — Their  Barbarous  Rule. — Absence  of 
Records  — Expulsion  of  the  Shepherd  Kings. — 
All  Egypt  United  under  the  New  Empire  Over  a 
Thousand  Years. — Prosperity,  Power  and  High 
Civilization  of  Eg^'pt  under  the  Eighteenth,  Nine- 
teenth and  Twentieth  Dynasties. — Amasis,  Anien- 
set,  Thothmes  IV. — Great  Sphinx. — Amunoph  III. 
and  the  two  Colossi. — Vocal  Memnon. — Horus. — 
Rameses  I. — Seti  and  the  Great  Hall  of  Karnak. — 
Rameses  the  Great. — Rameseum  at  Thebes. — 
Height  of  Egyptian  Art. — Menepta  and  the  Exo- 
dus.— Rameses  III.  and  the  Temple-Palace  at 
Thebes. — His  Successors. — Decline  of  Egypt. — 
The  Priest-Kings. — Temporary  Revival  under  the 
Twenty-second  Dynasty  Founded  by  Sheshonk  I. — 
Disturbed  Condition  of  Egypt  under  the  next  two 
Dynasties.— Conquest  of  Egypt  by  Sabaco  the 
Ethiopian. — His  Defeat  by  Sargon  of  Assyria  at 
Raphia. — Assyrian  Conquest  of  the  Delta. — Tirha- 
kah. — As.syrian  Conquest  of  Egypt. — Psammeti- 
chus  Recovers  the  Independence  of  Egypt. — Mi- 
gration of  the  Warrior  Caste  to  Ethiopia. — Reign 


of  Neko. — Commerce. — Circumna\ngation  of  Af- 
rica.— Neko  Defeated  by  Nebuchadnezzar  of  Baby- 
lon at  Carchemish. — Reign  of  Uahabra. — Egypt 
Tributary  to  Babylon. — Amasis  Throws  off  the 
Babylonian  Supremacy. — Defeat  of  Psammenitus 
at  Pelnsium  and  Persian  Conquest  of  Egypt. — 
Table  of  Kings. 

SECTION  IV. 
Egyptian  Civilization 63-89 

Origin  of  the  Egj^ptians. — Their  Physical  Char- 
adleristics. — Egj'ptian  Tribes. — Intelledlual  and 
Moral  Qualities  of  the  Egyptians. — Government. — 
The  King. — His  Sacred  Charadter. — His  Rights  and 
Duties  Stridlly  Prescribed  by  the  Sacred  Books. — 
Castes.— Priests.— Their  Mode  of  Life.— Their  As- 
cendency over  the  People. — Priestly  Professions. — 
Physicians. — Military  Caste. — Common  People. — 
Egyptian  Castes  Not  Absolutely  Fixed. — Intermar- 
riages and  Transitions. — Ev-ils  of  the  Caste  System. 
— Its  Tendency  to  National  Decay. — Egj'ptian  Land 
System.— Agricultural  Laborers.— Egyptian  Laws.— 
Egyptian  Army.— War  Chariots. — Archery.— Weajj- 
ons  of  Warfare. — Treatment  of  Prisoners. — Muti- 
lation of  the  Enemy's  Slain. — Climate  of  the 
Nile  Valley. — Vegetables. — .■\nimals. — M'nerals.— 
Causes  of' Egypt's  Produdliveness. — Cause  of  its 
Dense  Popuia'tion. — Agriculture. — Song  to  Oxen. 
—  Care  of  Animals.— Field  Sports.— Beasts  of  Bur- 
den.— Egvpt  an  ObjeA  of  Interest  in  All  Ages. — 
Density  of  its  Ancient  Population. — Memphis  and 
Thebes.— Architedlure. — Pyramids  and  Obelisks. — 
Egvpt  the  Ancient  World's  School.— Progress  in 
Sci'ence.— Skill  in  the  Finer  Mechanical  Arts.— 
Egyptian  Language.  —  Art  of  Writing.  —  Three 
Kinds  of  Writing. — Hieroglyphics  and  Papyrus.— 
Discovery  of  the  Rosetta  Stone  and  the  Key  to  the 
Hieroglyphics. — Dr.  Young  and  Champollion. — 
EgA-ptian  Custom  of  Recording  Everything  in 
PiAures  and  Writing.— Sources  of  our  Knowledge 
of  the  Ancient  Egyptians.— Revelation  of  Domestic 
Scenes  from  the  Egyptian  Tombs. — Progress  in 
the  Arts  thus  Demonstrated. — High  State  of  Civ- 
ilization thus  Shown. — Curious  Scenes. — Egyp- 
tian Dress. — Trades  and  Occupations. — Stone  Cut- 
ting.— Commerce. — Sculpture  and  Painting. — Re- 
ligious Character  of  Egyptian  Art.— The  Great 
Temple-Palace  at  Medinel-.Vbu. — Eg}-ptian  Tombs. 
—Custom  of  Embalming  the  Dead.— Paintings  and 
Sculpture  in  the  Tombs.—  Chambers  in  the  Tombs. 
— Scenes  Represented  in  the  Tombs. — Process  of 
Embalming. — Mummies  of  -Animals. — Methods  of 
Embalming. 


(xi) 


XII 


TABLE    OF   CONTENTS. 


SECTION  V. 

Egyptian  Mythology  and  Religion,   .  89-100 

Religious  charadler  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians. — 
Character  of  their  Religion. — Two  Kinds  of  Relig- 
ion.— Three  Orders  of  Gods. — The  Eight  Gods 
of  the  First  Order. — Amun. — Kueph. — Phthah. 
— Kheni. — Phrah. — Reason  for  Two  Systems. — 
Second  Order  of  Gods. — Third  Order. — Change  in 
the  Third  Order. — Typhon. — Myth  of  Osiris  and 
Isis. — Plutarch's  Explanations. — Allegorical  Mean- 
ing.— Phthah  the  Chief  God  in  Lower  Egypt. — 
Amun  in  Upper  Egypt.— Comparison  of  Amun 
with  Phthah. — Phrah  the  Life-Giving  God. — God's 
of  Upper  Egypt. — Comparison  of  Egypt's  Gods 
with  those  of  Greece. — Local  Deities. — Animal 
Worship. — Sacred  Animals.' — Sacred  Bull,  Apis,  of 
Memphis. — Place  of  Burial. — Animals  Sacred  in 
One  Place  not  so  in  Another  Place. — Mummies  of 
Sacred  Animals. — Reasons  for  Animal  Worship. — 
Religious  Festivals. — Religious  Daily  Life  of  the 
People. — Priests. —  Orders  of  the  Priesthood. — 
Gloomy  Chara<5ler  of  the  Egj'ptian  Religion. — 
Egyptian  Temples. — Temple  of  Amun. — Do(flrine 
of  the  Soul's  Immortality. — Transmigration  of  the 
Soul. — Comparison  with  the  Hindoo  DoiSlriue. — 
Reasons  for  Ornamenting  the  Egyptian  Tombs  and 
Embalming  the  Dead. — Ritual  for  the  Dead. — Be- 
lief in  Future   Rewards  aud   Punishments. — Em- 


balming the  Dead. — Funeral  Ceremonies. — Trial 
of  the  Dead.— Burial  of  the  Wicked.— Of  the 
Good. — Sacred  Lakes. — Influence  of  these  Cere- 
monies on  the  People. — The  Soul's  Trial  before 
the  Tribunal  of  the  Gods.— Hall  of  the  Two 
Truths 

SECTION    VI. 

The  Ancient  Ethiopians .  100-103 

The  Ancient  Ethiopians  and  their  Country. — 
Their  Antiquity. — Savage  and  Civilized  Ethiopians. 
— Fertility  of  Ethiopia. — Monuments. — Meroe  and 
Its  Caravan  Trade. — Its  Red  Sea  Ports. — Animals. 
— Kingdom  of  Meroe. — Its  History. — Ethiopian 
Kings  of  E.gj'p^. — Egj'ptian  Migration  to  Ethiopia. 
— Destrudtion  of  the  Persian  Army  of  Invasion  by 
Famine. — Ethiopiau  Religion. — The  Priesthood 
and  Their  Influence. — TempIes.^Power  of  the 
Priests  Over  the  Kings. — Ethiopian  Queens. — Can- 
dace  and  her  War  with  the  Romans. — Judaism  and 
Christianity  Successfully  Established  in  Ethiopia. 
— Christiauity  Still  the  Religion  of  Abyssinia. — 
Pyramids  of  Meroe. — Kingdom  of  Axume  and  Its 
Capital,  Axum. — Ruins  of  Axum. — Inscription  on 
a  Stone  Slab. — King  Aeizemus. — Nubian  Pyra- 
mids.— Temples  near  Merawe. — Great  Rock  Tem- 
ple of  Ipsambul. — Ruins  of  Barkal. — Rock-hewn 
Temples. — Jleroe  as  an  Ancient  Commercial  Em- 
porium.— Causes  of  its  Extindlion. 


CHAPTER    II.— CHALDEAN    EMPIRE. 


SECTION  I. 

Geography  ok  Chald^ea 105-107 

Cradle  of  Asiatic  History  and  Civilization. — 
Ancient  Date  in  Chaldaean  History.— Testimony  of 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures. — Land  of  Shinar. — The 
Tigris  and  Euphrates  Rivers. — Geographical  and 
Political  Divisions  in  the  Tigris-Euphrates  Valley. 
— Mesopotamia. — Chaldsea,  or  Babylonia. — Susi- 
ana. — Assyria. — The  Three  Great  Empires  in  the 
Tigris-Euphrates  Valley. — Antiquity  of  Chaldsea. — 
Its  Fertility  and  Produdlions. — Testimony  of  He- 
rodotus and  Other  Writers. — Brick  and  Bitumen. — 
Climate  of  Chaldsa,  or  Babylonia. — Animals. — 
Cities. — Testimony  of  the  Book  of  Genesis. — Ur  of 
the  Chaldees  and  Its  Ruins. — Other  Cities. 

SECTION  II. 
Sources  of  Chaldean  History,  .  .  .  107-108 
Berosus. — The  Old  Testament. — Herodotus,  Cte- 
sias  and  Diodorus  Siculus. — Modern  Investigation. 
— Explorations  of  Layard  and  Others  at  Nineveh, 
Babylon  and  Other  Ancient  Cities. — Cuneiform 
Inscriptions. — The  Canon  of  Ptolemy. — Assyrian 
Canon. — Modern  Writers. 

SECTION  III. 

Political  History 10S-113 

Origin  of  Chaldrea.^Dynasties  According  to  Be- 
rosus.— Mosaic  Account  of  Nimrod.^His  Charac- 
ter and  Deification. — Universal  Tradition  of  Nim- 
rod. — Migrations  from  Chaldtea. — Urukh  and  His 
Great  Temples. — Ilgi. — His  Signet-cylinder  in  the 
British  Museum. — Conquest  of  Chaldsea  by  a 
Susianian  or  Elamite  Dynasty. — Kudur-Nakhunta. 
— Kadur-Lagamer  and  His  Conquest  of  Canaan. — 
His  Successors. — Third  and  Fourth  Dynasties. — 
New  Style  of  ArchiteAure.— Conquest  of  Chal- 
daa  by  an  Arabian  Dynasty. — Kharamurabi  aud 
His    Great    Canal. — His     Successors. — Wars    and 


Marriage-Alliances  with   Assyria. — Assyrian   Con« 
quest  of  Chaktea. — Table  of  Kings. 

SECTION  IV. 

CHALD.SAN  Civilization 11 3- 120 

Nimrod,  Urukh,  and  Ch  :;dorlaomer. — Rawlinson 
on  Cbaldceau  Civilization. — Chaldffian  Architec- 
ture.— Brick  and  Bitumen. — Temples. — Dwellings. 
— Tombs. —  Brick  Vaults. —  Dish-cover  Coffins. — 
Double-jar  Coffins. — Sepulchral  Mounds.— Drain- 
age of  the  Mounds. — Cuneiform  Writing. — Clay 
Tablets. — Legends  on  Bricks. — Pottery. — Figures 
on  Clay  Tablets. — Arms,  Implements  aud  Orna- 
ments.— Implements  of  Stone  and  Bronze. — Cloths 
and  Textile  Fabrics. — Gem  Engraving. — Si.£;net- 
cylinders  and  Their  Seals  and  Legends. — Com- 
merce.—Caravan  Trade. — "  Ships  of  Ur." — Articles 
of  Foo4. — Astronomy  and  Arithmetic. — Weights 
aud  Measures. — Chald^a's  Legacy  to  Posterity. 

SECTION  V. 
Chaldean  Cosmogony  and  Religion  .  120-132 
Chaldsean  Account  of  the  Creation  as  Given  by 
Bero.sus. — Likeness  Between  Chaldaean  and  Jewish 
Legends. — Assyrian  Account  of  the  Creation  as 
Deciphered  from  the  Tablet  Inscriptions. — Myth- 
ical Antediluvian  Dynasty  of  Berosus. — Chaktean 
Account  of  the  Deluge  as  Related  by  Berosus. — 
Assyrian  Account  from  the  Tablets. — Traditions  of 
a  Great  Flood  in  Countries  Subjedl  to  Overflows. — 
Link  Between  Chaldaean  and  Jewish  Legends. — 
Account  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  by  Berosus. — Raw- 
linson's  View  of  Chaldaean  Mythology. — Polythe- 
istic Religion  of  Chaklrea. — Grouping  of  the  Chal- 
daean Deities. — Chief  Deity. — First  Triad  and  Their 
Wives. — Second  Triad  and  Their  Wives. — Five 
Planetary  Deities. — Inferior  Deities. — Relationship 
of  the  Deities. — II  or  Ra. — Ana  and  Anata.--Bel- 
Nimrod. — Beltis  or  Mulita. — Hea  or  Hoaand  Dav- 
kina. — Sin  or  Hurki,  and  the  Great  Lady. — San  or 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


XIll 


Sansi,  ami  Cula  or  Aminit. — Vul  or  Iva,  and  Sliala 
or  Tahu^Nin  or  Niiiip. — Merodacli. — Nergal. — 
Ishtar   or   Nana. — Symbolical    Myth    of    Islitar. — 


Nebo. — Astronomical  Cliara<fler  of  the  Chaldean 
Worship. — Origin  of  Astrological  Signs  and  Super- 
stitions. 


CHAPTER   III.— THE   ASSYRIAN   EMPIRE. 


SECTION   I. 

Geography  of  .\ssyria 137-138 

Location  of  Assyria. — Produdtions  of  Assyria. — 
Mineral  Produtls. — Climate. — Wild  and  Donie.stic 
Animals. — Extent  of  Assyrian  Ruins. — Scriptural 
Account  of  Early  Assyrian  Cities. — The  Four  Great 
Cities. — Ruins  of  Nineveh,  Calah,  Asshur  and  Dur- 
Sargina. — Other  Ruins. — Arbil  or  Arbela. — Other 
Assyrian  Cities. 

SECTION   II. 

Sources  of  Assyrian  History 139-140 

Herodotus  and  Ctesias. — The  Canon  of  Ptolemy 
and  the  Assyrian  Canon. — Their  Harmony  and 
Authenticity. — Inscriptions  on  Assyrian  Tablets, 
Bricks,  Sculptures. — Chronologies  of  Berosus  and 
Herodotus.  —  Disagreement  between  Herodotus 
and  Ctesias. — Their  RespeAive  Ancient  and  Mod- 
em Supporters. — The  Fidelity  and  Accuracy  of  He- 
rodotus.— The  Temper  and  Disposition  of  Ctesias 
Toward  Herodotus. — Herodotus  Sustained  by  the 
Other  Historical  Sources. — Origin  and  Duration 
of  the  Assyrian  Empire  According  to  Herodotus. — 
According  to  Berosus. 

SECTION    III. 

Political  History, 140-195 

Periods  of  Assyrian  History. — Chaldsean  Origin 
of  the  Assyrians. — First  Evidence  of  Assyrian  In- 
dependence.— Shalmaneser  I. — Tiglathi-Nin  I. — 
His  Successors. — Mutaggil-Nebo  and  Asshur-ris- 
ilim. — Tiglath-Pileser  I. — His  Wars. — His  Restor- 
ations and  Temples. — His  Invocation. — Religious 
Tone  of  His  Inscription. — General  Condition  of 
Assyria. — Tiglath-Pileser's  War  with  Babylon. — 
Rock  Tablet  of  Tiglath-Pileser  I. — Asshur-bil-kala 
and  Shainas  Vul  I. — Obscure  Interval. — Asshur- 
dayan  II.,  Vul-lush  II.  and  Tiglathi-Nin  II. — As- 
shur-izir-pal. — His  Wars. — His  Edifices.  — His  Great 
Palace. — His  Sculptures. — His  Stela;  and  Obelisks 
— Shalmaneser  II.  —  His  Wars. — Tribute  Taken 
from  Jehu,  King  of  Israel. — His  Palace. — The 
Black  Obelisk. — Rebellion  of  Asshur-danin-pal. — 
Extent  of  Assyrian  Dominion. — Shamas  Vul  II. — 
Vul-lush  III. — His  Sculptures. — His  Wife,  Semir- 
amis. — Pul. — Nabonassar  at  Babylon. — The  Proph- 
et Jonah  at  Nineveh. — End  of  the  Old  Assynan 
Empire  and  Beginning  of  the  New  or  Lower  As- 
syrian Empire  under  Tiglath-Pileser  II. — His  Wars. 
— Shalmaneser  IV.— His  Wars. — Siege  of  Tyre  and 
Samaria. — Sargon's  Revolt  and  Usurpation. — His 
Wars. — Capture  of  Samaria. — His  War  with  Sa- 
baco,  King  of  Egypt. — .Assyrian  Viftory  at  Raphia. 
^Capture  of  .\shdod. — Sargon's  Other  Conquests. 
— His  War  with  Susiana. — Sargon's  Town  and  Pal- 
ace.— Sennacherib. — His  Wars. — His  Viiflory  over 
the  Egyptians  and  Ethiopians  at  Altaku. — His 
War  with  Hezekiah,  King  of  Judah. — Siege  of  Je- 
rusalem.—  Submission  of  Hezekiah. —  Sennache- 
rib's Second  Syrian  F;xpedition. — Destru(5lion  of 
His  Army  at  Pelusium. — Its  Effe(5ls. — Sennache- 
rib's War  with  Susiana. — Babylonian  Revolt  under 
Susub. — Susub's  Defeat. — Renewed  Defection  of 
Babylon. — Sennacherib's  Palace  at  Nineveh. — His 
Employment  of  Forced  Labor. — .\.ssassiuation  of 
Sennacherib. — Esar-haddon. — His  Wars. — His  In- 


vasion of  Arabia. — His  Contjuest  of  Egypt. — Col- 
onization of  Palestine. — Esar-haddon 's  Palace  at 
Calah. — Asshur-bani-pal.— His  Wars. — His  Con- 
quest of  Egvpt,  Tyre,  Cilicia  and  Susiana. — His 
Relations  wi'th  Lydia. — His  Love  of  Hunting. — 
His  Literary  Tastes. — His  Edifices.— His  Great 
Palace  at  Nineveh. — His  Sculptures. — Asshur-bani- 
pal  Known  to  the  Greeks.— His  Cruelties. — De- 
cline of  Assyria. — Scythian  Inroad. — Asshur-emid- 
ilin,  the  Last  Assyrian  King. — Effects  of  the  Scyth- 
ian Invasion  on  Assyria. — Cyaxares,  King  of  Media, 
Attacks  Nineveh. — Treachery  of  Nabopolassar. — 
Capture  and  Destrudlion  of  Nineveh  and  Fall  of 
the  Assyrian  Empire. — Table  of  Kings. 

SECTION  IV. 

Assyrian  Civilization, 196-219 

Rawlinson  on  the  Chara(?l:er  of  the  Assyrian 
Empire. — The  Assyrians  a  Semitic  Race. — Their 
i  Kinship  with  the  Jews. — Resemblances  Between 
the  Two  Races  in  Physiognomy,  Chara<5ler,  Cus- 
toms, etc. — Valor  of  the  Assyrians. — Ferocity 
Tempered  by  Clemency. — Their  Treachery. — Their 
Pride. — Greek  Accounts  of  their  Voluptuousness 
and  Sensuality  Exaggerated. — Their  Mental  Power. 
— Their  Superiority  Over  the  Egyptians.— Their 
Mental  and  Physical  Vigor. — Assyrian  Writing. — 
Stone  Slabs  and  Clay  Cylinders. — Inscribed  Bulls 
and  Lions. — Obelisks. — Durability  of  the  Tablets. 
— Assvrian  Bas-reliefs. — Their  Varieties. — Mimetic 
Art.— Painting. — Taste  for  Display. — Modern  Ex- 
cavations in  Assyria. — Description  of  an  Assyrian 
Palace. — Architedlure. — The  Present  Condition  of 
the  Ruins  of  Nineveh. — Its  Walls. — Palaces  and 
Temples  on  its  Mounds. — Ancient  Accounts  of 
Nineveh. — Assyrian  Warfare. — War  Chariots. — 
Cavalry. — Infantry.  — Weapons. — Sieges.  —  Batter- 
ing Ra'ms  and  Movable  Towers.—  Catapult  or  Ba- 
lista. — Treatment  of  Captives. — Spoils  of  War. — 
Despotism. — The  Sovereign. — Musical  Instruments 
— Dress. — Food. — Entertainments.  — Commerce. — 
PraAical  CharaAer  of  their  Arts  and  Civilization. 
— Their  ArchiteAure  Practical. — Their  Palaces  Su- 
perior to  Their  Temples.— Manufadlures  and  the 
Useful  Arts. —  Metallurgy. — Mechanical  Knowl- 
edge.— Rawlinson  on  Their  Progress. — Their  Mili- 
tary and  Material  Greatness. 

SECTION  V. 

Ass\TiiAN  Religion, 220-230 

Identity  of  the  Assyrian  and  ChaUtean  Relig- 
ions.— Few  Differences. — .\sshurthe  Supreme  God 
of  Assyria. — Asshur's  Deification. — Asshur's  Em- 
blems.—The  Sacred  Tree.— The  Next  Deities.— 
Ann.- His  Temples.— Bel.— His  lunblein.— His 
Temples. — Ilea  or  Iloa. — His  Emblem. — His  Tem- 
ples.— Beltis. — Her  Temples. — Sin,  the  Moon-god. 
—  His  Emblem.  —  Ilis  Temples. — Shamas. — His 
Emblem.  — His  Temples.— Vul  or  Iva.— His  Em- 
blem.—His  Temples.— Gula.— Her  Emblem.— Her 
Temples. — Nin  or  Ninip. — His  Emblem.  —  His 
Temples.  —  Merodacli. — His  Emblem.  — Nergel. — 
His  Emblem.— His  Temples.— Ishtar.— Her  Tem- 
ples—Nebo.— His  Statues. — His  Temple. — Inferior 
Deities. — The  Female  Divinities. — Charaeter  of  the 
Goddesses. — Minor  Male  Deities. — Genii. — Good 
Genii. —  Evil    Genii. — Their    F'igures.  —  .Assyrian 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


Idols. — Moile  of  Worship. — Sacrifices  of  Animals. 
— Altars. — Thauk-Offerings.  —  Religious  Perform- 


ances  of  the  King, — Priests. — Festivals. — Fasts. — 
Religious  Character. — Religious  Ostentation. 


CHAPTER  IV.— THE   MEDIAN   EMPIRE. 

SECTION  III. 


SECTION   I. 

Geography  of  Mkdi.\, 231-234 

Situation  of  Media. — Geographical  Description. 
— Climate. —  Minerals. — Animals. — Media  Magna 
and  Media  Atropatene. — The  Two  Ecbatanas. — 
The  Southern  Ecbatana. — Its  Royal  Palace. — The 
Northern  Ecbatana. — Other  Median  Cities. 

SECTION  II. 

Political  History 234-244 

Origin  of  the  Medes. — Greek  Legends  Respeft- 
ing  the  Medes. — Early  Assyrian  Accounts  of  Me- 
dia.— Median  Kings  According  to  Ctesias. — Ac- 
cording to  Herodotus. — Founding  of  the  Median 
Empire  by  Cyaxares. — His  Unsuccessful  Attack  on 
Assyria. — Scythian  Invasion  of  Media. — Expulsion 
of  the  Scytlis. — Legend  of  Zarina. — Duration  of 
the  Scythian  Supremacy  According  to  Herodotus. 
— According  to  Eusebius. — Capture  of  Nineveh  and 
Overthrow  of  the  Assyrian  Empire. — Division  of 
the  Assyrian  Empire  between  Media  and  Babj-lonia. 
— Conquests  of  Cyaxares. — War  between  Media 
and  Lydia. — Peace  Caused  by  a  Solar  Eclipse  on 
the  Eve  of  a  Battle. — Alliance  and  Friendship  be- 
tween Media,  Lydia  and  Babylonia. — Alyattes,  the 
Successor  of  Cyaxares. — HisCharacfter. — His  Court. 
— The  Magi. — Peaceful  Reign  of  Astyages. — Con- 
tradictory Accounts  of  Ast}-ages. — His  Domestic 
Relations. — Early  Connedlion  of  Media  and  Persia. 
—Cyrus  the  Great  at  the  Median  Court.— His  Es- 
cape into  Persia. — Revolt  of  the  Persians  under 
Cyrus. — Defeats  of  the  Medes  and  Death  of  Asty- 
ages.— End  of  the  Median  Empire  and  Beginning 
of  the  Medo-Persiau  Empire. — Extent  of  the  Me- 
dian Empire. 


Median  Civilization 245-248 

The  Medes  and  Persians  a  Kindred  Aryan  Race. 
— Testimony  of  the  Persian  Sculptures. — The  Me- 
dian Women. — Rawlinson  011  the  Modern  Persians. 
— Bravery  of  the  Medes. — Simple  Life  of  the  Early 
Medes. — Later  Lu.Kury  and  Degeneracy. — Military 
Costume  and  .\rms. — Dress  of  the  Medes  in  Peace. 
— Later  Luxury  in  Dress  and  Banquets. — Court 
Ceremonial. — Royal  Amusement. — Hunting. — The 
Royal  Harem  or  Seraglio. — Corruption  and  De- 
generacy of  the  Medes. — Median  Arehitecflure  and 
Sculpture. 

SECTION  IV. 

ZOROA.STRIANISM  AND   MAGISM, 248-263 

Zeroaster  and  Zend-Avesta. — Testimony  of  Greek 
Writers. — Plutarch's  Account. — Translation  of  the 
Zend-Avesta  into  French  by  Anquetil  du  Perron. — 
Modern  Orientalists  on  the  Zend-.-^ vesta. — Uncer- 
tainty Concerning  Zoroaster's  Country  and  Time. — 
His  Wonderful  Influence. — His  Personality  Im- 
pressed on  his  Religion. — His  Belief  Concerning 
the  Dualism  of  Good  and  Evil. — Change  in  the 
Climate  of  Northern  Asia. — Charaifter  of  the  Zend- 
Avesta. — Its  Books. — Ahura- Mazda  and  Angra- 
Mainyus. — The  Great  War  between  Them. — Zoro- 
astrianism  Free  from  Idolatry. — Teachings  of  the 
Zend-Avesta.  — Worship.  —  Sacrifice.  —  Purity.  — 
Truth. — Later  Corruption  of  Zoroastrianism  by 
its  Contact  with  Magism. — Worship  of  the  Ele- 
ments.— The  lMa.gi. — F'usion  of  Zoroastrianism  and 
Magism. — Disposition  of  the  Dead. — Rawlinson 
on  this  Mixed  Religion. — Extracts  from  the  Zend- 
Avesta. 


CHAPTER  v.— THE   BABYLONIAN   EMPIRE. 


SECTION  I. 
Extent  of  the  Babylonian  Empire,  .  264-266 
Babylonia  or  Chaldaea. — The  Countries  Included 
in  the  Babylonian  Empire. — Agricultural  Pro- 
dudls  of  Babylonia. — Of  Susiana,  Northern  Meso- 
potamia, and  Northern  Syria. — Of  Southern  Syria 
and  Palestine. — Mineral  ProduAs  of  the  Empire. 
■ — Building  Stone. —  Wild  Animals. — Climate. — 
Countries  Bordering  on  the  Empire. — Great  Cities. 

SECTION   II. 

Political  Hlstory, 266-278 

Beginning  of  the  Babylonian  Flmpire. — Baby- 
lonia under  Assyrian  Rule. — The  Assyrian  Dy- 
nasty in  Babylonia. — Early  Wars  between  Baby- 
lonia and  Assyria. — Nabonassar. — His  Successors. 
— Merodach-Baladan. — Revolt  of  Nabopolassar  and 
his  Alliance  with  Cyaxares  of  Media. — Overthrow 
of  Assyria  and  Founding  of  the  Babylonian  Em- 
pire by  Nabopola.ssar. — His  Peaceful  Reign  and 
His  Alliance  with  Media. — Neko,  King  of  Egypt, 
Invades   the  Babylonian  Empire. — His   Defeat  at 


)  Carchemish  by  Nabopolassar's  Son,  Nebuchad- 
nezzar.—  Nebuchadnezzar's  Great  Reign. — Nebu- 
chadnezzar Attacks  Jehoiakim,  King  of  Judah. — 
Nebuchadnezzar's  Campaign  against  Apries,  King 
of  E.gypt,  and  Zedekiah,  King  of  Judah. — Siege 
and  Capture  of  Jerusalem. — Siege  and  Capture 
of  Tyre. — Conquest  of  Pha.-nicia  and  Palestine. 
— Nebuchadnezzar's  Invasions  of  Egypt. — Results 
of  His  Vi(5lories.— His  Great  Works'— The  Walls 
of  Babylon.— The  "Hanging  Gardens.  "—Other 
Works. —Nebuchadnezzar's  Private  Life.  —  His 
Personal  Character.  —  His  Wealth.  —  His  Occa- 
sional Piety.— His  Cruelties.— His  Devotion  to  His 
Median  W'ife.— His  Lycanthropy.— His  Recovery. 
— Brilliancv  of  the  End  of  his  Reign.— Evil-Mero- 
dach.  —  Neriglissar.  —  Laborosoarchod.  — Nabona- 
dius  the  Last  Babylonian  King. — Lydian  F;nibassy. 
— Nabonadius  Strengthens  Babylon. — Plis  Ally, 
CrcESUS,  King  of  Lydia,  Defeated  by  Cyrus  the 
Great  of  Persia. — >Jabonadius  Attacked  and  De- 
feated by  Cvrus. — Belshazzar's  Feast. — Capture  of 
Babylon  by  Cyrus,  and  End  of  the  Babylonian  Em- 
pire.— Table  of  Kings. 


T.inLIi    Of    CONTENTS. 


XV 


SECTION    III. 

Babylonian  Civilization 279-298 

Professor  Rawliuson  on  the  Baln'loiiian  Empire. 
— The  Later  Babyloiiiaus  a  Mixcil  Race. — Semitiz- 
ing  of  the  Old  Chald;tan  ropulation. — Thysical 
Characteristics  of  the  Later  Babyloiiiaus. — Their 
Hair  and  Beards. — Babylonian  Women. — Physical 
Similarity  of  the  .-Xssyrians  and  Babylonians. — In- 
telle<flsal  Ability  of  the  Babylonians. — Enterpri.se. 
— Luxurious  Habits. — Warlike  Braverj-  and  Skill. 
— Violence  and  Cruelty. — Pride.  —  Religious  Feel- 
ing.— Honesty  and  Calmness. — Extent  oi  the  Ruins 
of  Babylon. — Walls  of  Babylon. — dates. — Houses. 
— Quays,  River  Walls,  and  Bridge. — Palaces  of 
Babylon. — Temple  of  Bel. — Great  Palace. — Hang- 
ing Gardens. — Smaller  Palace. — Walls  of  Babylon. 
•-Its  Ruins  at  Present. — Babil,  Kasr  and  Amran 
Mounds. — Lines  of  Rampart  and  Low  Jlounds. — ■ 
El  Homeira  Mound. — Extent  of  Ruins. — Recent 
Explorations. — Identification  of  Sites. — Birs-i-Nim- 
rud. — Ingenuity  of  the  Babylouiaus. — Babylonian 
Architedlure. — Temples. — Palaces, — Hanging  Gar- 
dens.— Domestic  ArchiteClure. — Bricks. — Cement. 
— Mimetic  Art. — Mechanical  Arts. — Stone  Cutting. 
— Pottery. — Textile  Fabrics. — Carpets  and  Muslins. 
■ — Astronomy.  —  Observations.  —  Constellations. — 
Uranography .  — Zodiacal  Constellations. — Eclipses. 
— Catalogue  of  Fi.xed  Stars. — Sun   Dials. — Other 


Astronomical  Instruments. — Astrology. — Influence 
of  Stars  on  Individuals  and  Nations. — Changes  of 
Weather. — Mathematics. — Manners  and  Customs. 
• — The  King's  Tiara. — Priests'  Attire. — Weapons  of 
Warfare. — Babylonian  Armies. — Cavalry.— Charac- 
ter of  the  Babylonian  .Armies.— The  Priests.— 
"Wise  Men." — The  ChakUtans  as  Priests  and  Phil- 
osophers.— The  Priests  a  Learned  Body. — Their 
Learning. —Their  Social  Standing. — Babylonian 
Manufactures  and  Commerce. — Their  Imports. — 
Agriculture. — Cultivation  of  the  Date-Palm. — Food. 
— Babylonian  Jlusic. — Babylonian  Women. — Im- 
plements. 

SECTION   IV. 

Babylonian  Religion, 299-302 

Identity  of  the  Early  Chaldsan  and  the  Later 
Babylonian  Religion. — Difference  in  the  Ranks  of 
Deities. — Nebuchadnezzar's  Preference  for  Mero- 
dach. — Bel  Restored  to  his  Former  Place  by  Na- 
bonadius. — Confounding  of  Beltis  and  Ishtar. — Bel, 
Nebo  and  Merodach  the  Chief  Deities  of  the  Later 
Babylonians. — Nergal. — Local  Character  of  the 
Gods. — Babylonian  Images. — Material  of  the  Idols. 
— Magnificence  of  the  Worship. — F'estivals. — Re- 
ligious Prostitution. — Cleanliness  and  Vncleanli- 
ness. — Symbolism  in  Religion. — Mystic  Numbers. 
— Pidlorial  Symbols. — Sacred  Names  of  Temples. 


CHAPTER   VI.— KINGDOMS    OF    ASIA    MINOR. 


SECTION   I. 

Geogr.\phy  of  Asi.v  Minor 305-307 

Situation.  —  Boundaries.  —  Extent.  —  Climate. — 
Productions.— Rivers. — Mountains. — Lakes. — Min- 
erals.— Islands  along  the  Coast. — Asia  Minor  in 
History. — Geographical  and  Political  Dinsions. 

SECTION   II. 

Phrygia  .\nd  Cilici.\, 307-30S 

Early  Races  of  Asia  Minor. — Phrygians. — Cilicia. 

SECTION   III. 

Kingdom  of  Lydia 308-314 

Rank  and  Situation  of  Lydia. — Its  Cities. — The 


Lydians  and  their  Wealth. — Their  Origin. — The 
Three  Dynasties  of  Lydia. — Lydian  Traditions. — 
Beginning  of  the  Real  History  of  Lydia. — Gyges. 
— Invasion  of  the  Cimmerians. — Defeat  and  Death 
of  Gyges. — Ardys. — Sadj'attes. — Alyattes. — Expul- 
sion of  the  Cimmerians. — Founding  of  the  Great 
Lydian  Empire. — War  with  Media. — Peace  in  Con- 
sequence of  a  Solar  Eclipse  on  the  Eve  of  a  Battle. 
— Alliance  and  Friendship  of  Lydia,  Media  and 
Babylonia. — War  with  the  Greek  Colonists. — Croe- 
sus.— His  Wars  and  Conquests. — Greatness  of 
Lydia. — Wealth  of  Crcesus. — Story  of  Crcesus  and 
Solon. — War  With  Cyrus  the  Great  of  Persia. — De- 
feat and  Captivity  of  Croesus. — End  of  the  Lydian 
Kingdom. — Table  of  Kings. 


CHAPTER    VII.— PHCENICIA    AND    SYRIA. 


SECTION   I. 

Phoenicia  and  its  People 315-316 

Situation  and  Extent  of  Phoenicia. — The  PhcE- 
nicians  a  Semitic  People.— The  Phoenician  Cities. 
^-Sidon. — Tyre. 

SECTION  II. 

History  of  Tyre 316-320 

Short  Duration  of  Phoenician  Independence. — 
Supremacy  of  Tyre. — King  Abibaal. — Hiram. — 
Baaleazar.  —  .Abdastartus.  —  Eth-baal.  —  aiatgen. — 
Pygmalion  and  Dido.  —  Flight  of  Dido,  Who 
Founded  Carthage. — .Assyrian  Conquest  of  Phoe- 
nicia.— Hiram  II. — Elulseus. — Five  Years'  Siege 
of  Tyre  by  the  .Assyrians,  Who  Finally  Retire. — • 
Recovery  of  Phtenician  Independence. — Second 
Assyrian  Conquest  of  Pha_>nicia. — Capture  of  Tyre 
by  Sennacherib. — Revolt  of  Sidon. — Its  Recon- 
quest  by  Esar-haddou  of  .\ssyria. — Revolt  of  the 
Phoenician  Cities  Subdued  by  .\sshur-bani-pal. — 
Egyptian  Supremacy  over  Phoenicia. — Babylonian 


Supremacy. — Thirteen  Years'  Siege  of  Tyre  by 
Nebuchadnezzar. — Defeat  of  the  Egyptians. — Phoe- 
nicia under  Medo-Persian  Rule. — Siege  and  Cap- 
ture of  Tyre  by  Alexander  the  Great. — Phoenicia 
under  the  Macedonian  Dominion. — Subsequent 
History. 

SECTION  III. 
Phoenician  Commerce  and  Colonies,  .  321-323 
The  Phoenicians  the  Leading  Manufacturing, 
Commercial,  Colonizing  and  Maritime  People  of 
.\nti<iuity.  —  Rapid  Growth  of  Phoenician  Com- 
merce.—  Carryin.g-Trade. —  Extent  of  Phoenician 
Colonies.  —  Phrenician  Land  Trade.  —  Precious 
Metals  from  Spain. — Tin  from  Cornwall. — Phce- 
niciati  Voyage  .\round  Southern  .Vfrica.— Commer- 
cial Enterprise  of  the  Phoenicians. 

SECTION  IV. 
Phcenician  Arts  and  Civilization,  .  .  323-325 
Phoeuiciau  Manufactures. — Tynan  Purple. — Veg- 


XVI 


TABLE    OF   CONTENTS. 


etable  Dyes. —  Glass-blowing.  —  Pottery. —  Bronze- 
work. — Jewelry. —  Ivory-carvings. — Agriculture. — 
Letters. — Phceniciau  Alphabet. — Phcenician  Lan- 
guage. —  Literature.  —  Architetlure.  —  Statuary. — 
Paintings.  —  Dress. —  Testimony  of  the  Egyptian 
Paintings. — Of  Isaiah. 

SECTION  V. 

Phoenician  Religion 326-327 

Limited  Sources  of  Information  Concerning  the 
Ph(]enician  Religion. — The  Works  of  Philo  Byblus. 
— Origin  and  Charaifter  of  the  Phcenician  Religion. 
— A  Narrow  Polytheism. — Gods. — Baal. — Astarte. 
— Sun  and  Star  Worship. — Cruel  and  Licentious 
Rites. — No  Idolatry. — Praise,  Prayer  and  Sacrifice. 
— Festivals. — General  Tendency  of  the  Worship 
to  Lower  and  Debase  Mau. — Rawliuson's  View. 


SECTION  VI. 

Geography  of  Syria, 328-330 

Situation  of  Syria. — Mountains. — Produdlions. — 
Climate.  —  Animals. —  I;amascus . —  Antioch.  —  Hie- 
rapolis. — Emessa. — Tadmor,  or  Palmyra. — Baalbec, 
or  Heliopolis. — Earliest  Inhabitants. — Petty  States 
of  Ancient  Syria. — Syria  under  Foreign  Dominion. 
• — Syria  the  Theatre  of  Important  Events. 

SECTION   VII. 

History  of  Damascus, 331-333 

Five  Great  States  of  Ancient  Syria. — Syria  of 
Damascus. — Remote  Antiquity  of  Damascus. — Ori- 
gin of  the  Kingdom  of  Damascus. — Reigns  of 
Hadad,  Rezon,  Tab-rimmon,  Ben-hadad  I.,  Beu- 
hadad  II.,  Hazael,  Ben-hadad  III.  and  Rezin. — As- 
syrian Conquest  of  Damascus. — Table  of  Kings. 


CHAPTER  VIII.— THE   HEBREW   NATION. 


SECTION    I. 

The  Hebrew  Patriarchs 337-345 

Semitic  Origin  of  the  Hebrews. — Abraham's 
Migration  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  to  the  Promised 
Land  of  Canaan. — Abraham  in  Egypt. — Invasion 
of  Canaan  by  Chedorlaomer,  King  of  Chalda;a. — 
Abraham's  Victory  near  Damascus. — Hagar  Driven 
into  the  Wilderness. — Birth  of  Ishmael. — Lot's 
Flight  from  Sodom. — Destruction  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah. — Birth  of  Isaac. — Abraham's  Residence 
at  Beer-sheba. — Attempted  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. — 
Death  and  Burial  of  Sarah. — Isaac's  Marriage  with 
Rebekah. — Birth  of  Esau  and  Jacob. — Abraham's 
Second  Marriage. — His  Death  and  Burial. — Char- 
a<5ler  of  Esau  and  Jacob. — Esau  Sells  his  Birth- 
right for  a  Mess  of  Pottage. — ^Jacob  Defrauds  Esau 
of  the  Blessing  which  his  Father  Intended  for  him. 
— Esau's  attempts  on  Jacob's  Life. — Jacob's  Flight 
to  Mesopotamia. — His  Sojourn  with  his  Uncle  La- 
ban. — His  Wives  aiul  Children. — His  Return  to 
Canaan. — E.sau's  Welcome  to  his  Brother. — Jacob's 
Trouble  with  His  Children. — ^Joseph  vSold  as  a  Bond 
Slave  into  Egypt. — He  Becomes  Prime  Minister  to 
the  Reiguing  Pharaoh. — Famine  in  Egypt. — Jacob 
and  His  Family  Settle  in  Egypt. — Jacob's  Death. 

SECTION    II. 

The  Exomis  and  Wanderings,  ....  346-355 
Growth  of  the  Hebrew  Nation  in  E.gA'pt. — Their 
Condition  in  the  Land  of  Goshen. — Expulsion  of 
the  Shepherd  Kings.— Severe  Oppression  of  the 
Hebrews  by  Rameses  the  Great. — Birth  of  Moses. 
— His  Education  as  an  Egyptian  Prince. — He  Kills 
an  E.gyptian.— His  Flight  to  the  Land  of  Midian. 
—His  Sojourn  at  Mount  Sinai. — The  Burning  Bush. 
— Moses  Undertakes  the  Deliverance  of  His  Coun- 
trymen.— He  Seeks  Pharaoh  Menepta's  Court. — 
His  Demand  Rejedled.— The  Ten  Plagues.— Insti- 
tution of  the  Passover. — The  Exodus. — The  Pas- 
sage of  the  Red  Sea.— The  March  to  Sinai.— The 
Laws  of  Moses. — Founding  of  the  Hebrew  State. — 
The  March  Resumed. — Return  of  the  Spies. — Re- 
bellion of  the  Israelites. — Their  Defeat  by  the  Ca- 
naanites.— The  Wanderings  in  the  Wilderness.— 
DeatL  ^f  Aaron. — The  Advance  to  the  Promised 
Land.— Conquest  of  the  Conntrv  East  of  the  Jor- 
dan.—Defeat  of  the  Moaliites.— Death  of  Moses. 

SECTION    III. 
Conquest  ok  Canaan— The  Judges,  .   .  355-366 
Joshua,  the  Successor  of  Moses. — Passage  of  the 


Jordan.  —  Canaanitish  Nations.  —  Description  of 
Canaan,  or  Palestine. — Capture  of  Jericho,  Ai  and 
Shechem. — Joshua  Conquers  Canaan  by  the  Two 
Decisive  Battles  of  Beth-horon  and  the  Waters  of 
Merom. — Division  of  the  Promised  Laud  among 
the  Twelve  Tribes  of  Israel. — ^Joshua's  Death. — 
Evils  which  Followed. — Period  of  Anarchy. — The 
Judges. — Charadler  of  the  Office  of  Judge. — Ex- 
ploits of  Ehud. — Barak's  Victory  over  Sisera. — 
Gideon's  Triumph  over  the  Midianites. — EH,  High- 
Priest. — Wickedness  of  his  Sons. — Samson  the 
Strong. — The  Prophet  and  High-Priest,  Samuel. — 
Defeat  of  the  Israelites  by  the  Philistines. — Capture 
of  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant. — Eli's  Death. — Samuel, 
Judge. — The  Israelites  Demand  a  King. — Samuel's 
Warning. — Saul  Anointed  King  of  Israel. 

SECTION  IV. 
The  United  Kingdom  of  Israel,  .  .  .  366-373 
Charatler  of  Saul. — Discontent  of  the  Tribes. — 
Rescue  of  Gilead. — Saul  Acknowledged  by  the 
Hebrew  Nation. — Saul's  Usurpation  of  the  High- 
Priest's  Power. — His  Quarrel  with  Samuel.— Wars 
with  the  Philistines  and  Other  Nations. — Exter- 
mination of  the  Amalekites. — Samuel  Kills  Agag. — 
He  Curses  Saul. — Saul's  Madness. — Daxad  Anoint- 
ed King. — Saul's  Fondness  for  David. — David  Kills 
Goliath. — Saul  Seeks  the  Life  of  David.- — David's 
Flight. —  His  Adventures.  —  Saul  Massacres  the 
Priests. — Battle  of  Mount  Gilboa  and  Death  of 
Saul  and  Jonathan . — David  Becomes  King  of  Judah. 
—The  Other  Eleven  Tribes  Adhere  to  Ishbosheth, 
Saul's  Surviving  Son. — Civil  War. — David  King  of 
All  Israel. — David  Takes  Jerusalem  from  thejebu- 
sites  and  Makes  it  the  Capital  of  his  Kingdom. — 
David's  Conquests. — Extent  of  His  Empire.- His 
Civil  Administration. — His  Psalms. — His  Sins. — 
Rebellion  and  Death  of  Absalom. — Tragic  Deaths 
of  Two  Other  Sons  of  David. — David's  Death. — 
Solomon's  Brilliant  Reign. — Splendor  of  His  Court. 
— Commerce  of  the  Hebrews. — Solomon's  Temple. 
— His  Wisdom  and  Early  Virtues. — His  Proverbs. 
— Visit  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba.— Sjlomon's  Ha- 
rem, or  Seraglio. — His  Luxury  and  Sensuality. — 
Its  Corrupting  Influence. — Decline  of  Solomon's 
Power. — His  Sins. — His  Death. — Accession  of  Re- 
hoboam  and  Revolt  of  the  Ten  Tribes. 

SECTION    V. 

The  Kingdom  of  Israel 373-375 

Characfler  of  the  Kingdom  of  Israel. — Idolatrous 


TABU-:  OF  CONTENTS. 


XVII 


Reign  of  Jeroboam. — Coinplele  Separation  of  the 
Two  Hebrew  KinL;ilonis. — Baasha's  Reij;n. — -War 
with  Damascus. — Oniri's  Reij^n. — The  City  of  Sa- 
maria I'oiuuled  by  Omri. — Ahab  and  Jezebel. — 
Jehu's  Reign. — Israel  Subject  to  Syria. — Reign  of 
Jeroboam  II. — Shallum's  Reign. — His  Invasion  of 
Assyria. — He  is  Conquered  and  Made  Tributary  to 
Assyria. — Assyrian  Conciuest  of  the  Trans-Jordanic 
Country. — Israel  Invaded  by  Shalmaiieser  IV.  of 
Assyria. — Capture  of  Samaria  and  Assyrian  Cap- 
tivity Ends  the  Kingdom  of  Israel. — The  Depopu- 
lated Countr}-  Colonized  by  Other  Subjects  of  Sar- 
gon,  King  of  Assyria. 

SECTION   VI. 

TiiK  Kingdom  ok  Judah,  375-,V'*i 

Advantages  of  Judah  over  Israel. — Reign  of  Re- 
hoboam. — Capture  of  Jerusalem  by  Shishak,  King 
of  Egypt. — Reign  of  Abijah. — Asa"sGood  Reign. — 
His  Viclory  over  the  E.gvplians.  —  The  Levites 
Join  Judah. — Alliance  with  Damascus. — Wars  with 
Israel. — Jehoshaphat's  Reign. — Alliance  with  Is- 
rael.— Athaliah. — Reign  of  Joash. — Reign  of  Ama- 
ziah. — Conquest  of  Edom. — Uzziah's  Sin. — Reign 
of  Ahaz. — Judah  Becomes  Tributary^  to  Assv'ria. — 
Hezekiah's  Good   Reign. — Invasion  of   Jucfah   by 


Sennacherib,  King  of  Assyria.  —  Destni<5lion  of 
Sennacherib's  Army. — Manasseh's  Wicked  Reign. 

—  His  Captivity  in  Assyria  and  His  Release  by 
Esiir-haddon,  the  Assyrian  King.  —  Anmion's 
Reign. — Juilah  Tributary  to  Habylon. — Josiah's 
Reign  and  Death. — Judah  Subjecfl  to  Egypt. — 
Judah  Comes  under  the  Dominion  of  Babylon. 
Revolts  of  Judah. — Zeilekiah  the  Last  King  of 
Judah. — Capture  of  Jerusiilem  by  N"ebuchadnezz.;ir 
of  Babylon. — The  Babylonian  Captivity  I'jids  the 
Kingdom  of  Judah. — Table  of  Kings. 

SECTION  VII 

Babvi.oni.vn  Captivity  and  Rkturn,      3S1-384 

The  Jews  in   Babjlon. — Capture  of  Babylon  and 

Overthrow-    of    the    Babylonian    Empire   by   Cyrus 

the  Great  of  Persia. — His  I'riendship  for  the  Jews. 

—  His  EdicT;  Permitting  Them  to  Return  to  Pales- 
tine.— The  Return  of  the  Jews  imder  Zerubbabel, 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah. — The  Temple  of  Jerusalem 
Rebuilt. — Darius  Hystaspes,  King  of  Persia,  Per- 
mits the  Jews  to  Rebuild  Jerusalem. — Ezra,  High- 
Priest. — Judiea  under  Persian  Rule, — Loyalty  of 
the  Jews  to  Jehovah. — End  of  the  Old  Testament 
History. — Jewish  Civilization. — Manners  and  Cus- 
toms. 


MAPS  IN  VOLUME  I. 


World  according  to  Strabo         

World  according  to  Pomponius  Mela  . .  - 
World  according  to  Dionysins  Periegetes- 

World  according  to  Ptolemy    

World  according  to  Kratost'henes 
World  according  to  Herodotus  , 
Ancient  Historical  World... 
World  according  to  Hecaticn- 


21 
22 
23 

22,23 
24 
35 

36,37 
38 


Earliest  Historic  Regions  .  104 

Ancient  Eg>'pt 133 

First  Great  Empires.,  I34.i35 

Ancient  Asia  Minor..  303 

Primitive  Settlements .       ,  334 

Canaan,  Egypt  and  Route  of  the  Israelites  335 

Ancient  Palestine                                    336 

Solomon's  Kingdom  and  Phoenicia.  385 


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INTRODUCTION, 


ISTORY  is  a  record  of  events 
which  have  occurred  among 
mankind;  embracing  an  ac- 
count of  the  rise  and  fall  of 
nations,  and  other  great  muta- 
tions which  have  affected  the  political  and 
social  condition  of  the  human  race.  In  a 
more  limited  sense,  Historj-  is  a  record  of 
the  progress  of  mankind  in  civilization;  and, 
therefore,  deals  especiallj^  with  those  na- 
tions which  have  performed  great  achieve- 
ments and  exerted  a  commanding  influence 
upon  the  fortunes  of  the  human  race.  The 
Historyi  of  Civilization  is  that  department  of 
History  which  treats  of  the  progress  of  dif- 
ferent nations  in  the  arts,  sciences,  litera- 
ture and  social  culture.  The  Philosophy  of 
History  treats  of  the  events  of  the  past  in 
conneiflion  with  their  causes  and  conse- 
quences, and  deduces  from  them  certain 
principles,  which  nvxy  ser\^e  as  a  guide  to 
statesmen  in  condudting  the  affairs  of  na- 
tions. Thus,  Historj'  has  been  called 
"philosophy  teaching  bj^  example;"  and, 
as  a  celebrated  writer  has  observed;  "Social 
advancement  is  as  completely  under  the 
control  of  natural  law  as  is  bodily  growth. 
The  life  of  an  individual  is  a  miniature  of 
the  life  of  a  nation."  Sacred  History  is  that 
which  is  contained  in  the  sacred  scriptures; 
as  distinguished  from  Profane  History,  as 
recorded  in  other  books.  Eeelesiastical  His- 
tory is  the  History  of  the  Christian  Church; 
while  Civil  or  Political  History  deals  with 
the  rise,  progress  and  fall  of  nations. 

Chronology  is  that  department  of  Histor>' 
which  treats  of  the  precise  time  or  date  of 
each  event  with  respecft  to  some  fixed  time 
called  an  era  or  epoch.  Chronology  and 
Geography  have  been  called  the  two  eyes 
of  Historj'.  The  one  tells  when,  the  other 
where,  events  have  occurred.  Christian 
nations  compute  time  from  the  birth  of 
Chri.st;  while  Mohammedan  nations  reckon 
1— 2.-U.  H.  C 


from  the  Hegira,  or  Mohammed's  flight 
from  Mecca,  which  event  occurred  in  the 
year  622  of  the  Christian  era.  The  Ancient 
Greeks  dated  from  the  first  Olympiad,  776 
3'ears  before  the  Christian  era;  the  Ancient 
Romans  from  the  founding  of  Rome,  753 
years  before  the  Christian  era;  and  the  An- 
cient Babylonians  from  the  Era  of  Nabon- 
assar,  747  years  before  the  Christian  era. 
No  dates  can  be  established  with  certainty 
for  events  in  Ancient  History  of  any  period 
more  than  five  centuries  before  Christ. 

Concerning  the  human  race  outside  of  na- 
tions, there  is  much  important  and  interest- 
ing knowledge  furnished  by  different  sci- 
ences. Among  these  sciences,  as  aids  to 
History  proper,  are  Ethnology,  or  the  science 
of  the  various  races  or  types  of  mankind; 
Archeology,  or  the  science  of  the  ancient 
works  of  man;  Philology,  or  the  science  of 
language;  and  Anthropology,  or  the  science 
which  deals  with  man  in  natural  history\ 

Historj'  is  generallj'  divided  into  three 
great  epochs — Ancient  History,  Mediceval 
History,  and  Modern  History.  Ancient  His- 
torj^  begins  with  the  first  appearance  of  his- 
toric records,  and  ends  with  the  fall  of  the 
Western  Roman  Empire,  A.  D.  476.  Me- 
difeval  Histor>\  or  the  Historj'  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  extends  from  the  fall  of  Rome,  A.  D, 
476,  to  the  Discover>'  of  America,  A.  D. 
1492.  Modem  History  embraces  the  period 
from  the  Discovert'  of  America  to  the  pres- 
ent time.  Sometimes,  however,  the  world's 
history  is  divided  into  only  two  great  pe- 
riods— Ancient  and  Modern;  Ancient  His- 
tor>'  embracing  the  whole  period  before  the 
fall  of  Rome,  A.  D.  476,  and  Modem  His- 
tory comprising  the  entire  period  since  that 
event.  This  double  division  is  perhaps  the 
more  logical  of  the  two,  as  ancient  civiliza- 
tion passed  away  with  the  extineftion  of  the 
Western  Roman  Empire,  while  modern  na- 
tions and  modern  institutions  took  their  rise 
25) 


26 


INTRO  D  UCTION. 


from  that  point.  The  triple  division,  how- 
ever, is  the  more  convenient,  and  for  that 
reason  we  shall  follow  it  in  this  work. 

The  three  sources  of  History  are  written 
records,  architecftural  monuments  and  frag- 
mentary remains.  Several  races  of  men 
have  disappeared  from  the  globe,  leaving  no 
records  inscribed  upon  stone  or  parchment. 
The  existence  and  charadter  of  these  people 
can  only  be  inferred  from  fragments  of  their 
weapons,  ornaments  and  household  uten- 
sils, found  in  their  tombs  or  among  the 
ruins  of  their  habitations.  Among  these 
races  were  the  Lake-dwellers  of  Switzerland; 
the  prehistoric  inhabitants  of  the  Age  of 
Stone  and  the  Age  of  Bronze  of  the  British 
Isles;  the  builders  of  the  shell-mounds  of 
Denmark  and  India;  and  the  Mound-build- 
ers of  the  Mississippi  Valley. 

The  discovery  of  monuments  of  great  an- 
tiquity has  aided  vastly  in  ascertaining  the 
date  of  ancient  events.  The  Parian  Marble, 
brought  to  England  from  Smyrna  by  the 
Earl  of  Arundel,  contains  a  chronological 
arrangement  of  important  events  in  Grecian 
history  from  the  earliest  period  to  355  B.  C. 
The  Assyrian  Canon,  discovered  by  Sir 
Henrj'  Rawlinson,  the  great  English  anti- 
quarian, consists  of  a  number  of  clay  tab- 
lets, construcfled  during  the  reign  of  Sarda- 
napdlus,  and  containing  a  complete  plan  of 
Assyrian  chronology,  verified  by  the  record 
of  a  solar  eclipse  which  must  have  occurred 
June  15,  763  B.  C.  The  Fasti  Capitolini, 
discovered  at  Rome,  partly  in  1547  and 
partly  in  1817  and  1818,  contains  in  frag- 
mentary records  a  list  of  Roman  magistrates 
and  triumphs  from  the  beginning  of  the 
Roman  Repi.blic  to  the  close  of  the  reign 
of  Augustus.  The  Rosetta  Stone,  discovered 
by  a  French  militar>'  engineer  during  Bona- 
parte's expedition  to  Egypt  in  1798,  con- 
tains inscriptions  in  the  Greek  and  Egyptian 
languages,  the  deciphering  of  which  has  led 
to  tlie  discoverj'  of  a  key  to  the  meaning  of 
thehieroglj'phic  inscriptions  on  the  Egyptian 
monuments.  The  fragmentary  writings  of 
Sanchoniathon  give  us  some  light  on  Phoeni- 
cian history;  those  of  Berosus  on  Babylonia 
and  Assyria;  Manetho's  lists  of  the  thirty 


dynasties  of  Egyptian  kings  afford  us  val- 
uable information;  and  the  works  of  Herod- 
otus, the  "  Father  of  History,"  have  given 
us  a  graphic  account  of  the  ancient  nations 
-^their  annals,  manners  and  customs,  as 
well  as  a  geographical  description  of  the 
countries  which  they  inhabited. 

The  imposing  temples  and  palaces  of 
Egypt,  Assyria,  and  India  have  only  afforded 
historic  materials  since  the  diligent  research 
of  European  scholars  and  antiquarians  has 
succeeded  in  deciphering  the  inscriptions 
which  they  bore.  Within  the  present  gen- 
eration the  discoveries  of  these  European 
orientalists  have  added  wonderfullj'  to  our 
knowledge  of  primeval  ages,  and  explained 
in  a  remarkable  manner  the  brief  allusions 
of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  Thus  within  the 
last  century  the  discovery  of  the  Rosetta 
Stone,  the  deciphering  of  the  Egyptian 
hieroglyphics,  and  the  labors  of  those  learned 
French  Egyptologists  Champollion  and  Ma- 
riette,  have  given  us  a  flood  of  new  light 
upon  ancient  Egyptian  times;  while  the  ex- 
humations and  discoveries  of  those  celebrated 
English  archsEologists  and  antiquarians, 
L,ayard  and  Rawlinson.  in  the  Tigris-Eu- 
phrates valleys,  have  almost  recast  the  his- 
tory of  Assy  ria^  Chaldsea,  and  Babylonia;  and 
the  patient  explorations  and  exhumations 
of  that  German  savant,  Dr.  Schliemann, 
upon  the  site  of  ancient  Troy,  between  the 
years  1869  and  1873,  have  been  rewarded 
with  the  discovery  of  many  interesting 
architecftural  remains  and  furnished  new 
illustrations  of  the  "tale  of  Troy  divine." 

The  oldest  remaining  books  are  the  He- 
brew Scriptures,  which,  in  the  Mosaic  cos- 
mogony, describe  the  origin  of  the  universe 
and  the  creation  of  the  first  pair,  Adam  and 
Eve,  and  their  fall  from  a  state  of  innocence 
and  purity;  the  murder  of  their  son  Abel  by 
his  brother  Cain;  the  genealogy  of  the  pa- 
triarchs of  the  antediluvian  period;  the  de- 
struc5lion,  by  a  great  Deluge,  of  the  whole 
human  race,  except  Noah  and  his  wife  and 
his  three  sons  and  their  wives,  and  their 
salvation  in  the  Ark,  which  rested  on  Moinit 
Ararat,  in  Armenia;  the  vain  attempt  of 
Noah's  descendants  to  avert  a  similar  pun- 


w 

N 

o 


w 
p 


> 

td 


M 


5 


N 


o 

D 


Men  Di'KtNG  TRK  Stone  Age. 


Men  during  the  KRONZt  Age. 


VKEHISTORIC    MAN. 


Medeak  Nohle. 


Assyrian  Hi(;h   Pkikst     Assyrian  King. 


THE  EARLIEST  HISTORICAL  T1ME& 


INTRODUCTION. 


27 


ishmcnt  by  building  the  great  Tower  of 
Babel,  and  the  consequent  Confusion  of 
Tongues  and  the  Dispersion  of  the  human 
race,  which  led  to  the  peopling  of  everj' 
quarter  of  the  globe  by  the  descendants  of 
Noah's  sons,  Shem,  Ham,  and  Japheth. 
The  writings  of  Berosus,  the  Babylonian 
historian,  also  describe  the  Creation,  the 
Deluge  and  the  Confusion  of  Tongues. 
Every  civilized  nation  and  savage  tribe  has 
some  vague  idea  of  a  great  flood  that  once 
covered  the  earth,  but  they  all  differ  in  their 
details. 

We  have  already  alluded  to  the  writings 
of  Sanchoniathon,  the  Phoenician  historian; 
Berosus,  the  Babylonian ;  Manetho,  the 
Egyptian;  Herodotus,  the  "Father  of  His- 
tory," and  the  great  Hebrew  lawgiver, 
Moses,  the  earliest  sacred  historian.  He- 
rodotus was  the  first  of  Grecian  historians. 
Other  Greek  writers  of  historj^  were  Thucyd- 
ides,  the  great  philosophic  historian;  Xen- 
ophon,  the  writer  of  charming  historical 
romances;  Cte.sias;  Diodorus  Siculus;  Polyb- 
ius;  and  Plutarch,  the  charming  biogra- 
pher of  antiquity.  Ancient  Rome  produced 
lyivy,  Tacitus,  Sallust,  and  Cornelius  Nepos, 
who  have  given  us  the  facfls  of  Roman  his- 
tory. For  the  history  of  the  ancient  He- 
brews we  are  indebted  to  the  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  works  of  Josephus, 
the  celebrated  Jewish  historian,  who  wrote 
a  complete  history  of  his  countrymen  in 
Greek.  Among  early  Christian  church  his- 
torians were  the  Roman  Eusebius  and  the 
Anglo  Saxon,  the  "Venerable  Bede."  The 
Frenchmen  Comines  and  Froissart  were 
celebrated  chroniclers  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  Italian  Macchiavelli  achieved  fame  by 
his  historical  writings.  Among  modern 
historians  have  been  many  who  have  ac- 
quired celebrity  by  their  works.  Such  were 
the  great  trio  of  British  historians  who  flour- 
ished a  century  ago — Hume,  Gibbon  and 
Robertson,  whose  works  have  ever  since 
been  regarded  as  standards.  In  the  pres- 
ent centurj'  England  has  produced  many 
famous  writers  of  history;  such  as  Macaulay, 
Carlyle.  Grote,  Thirlwall,  Froude,  Lingard, 
Arnold,  Alison.  Freeman,  Rawliuson,  Green, 


Knight,  Merivale,  Milman,  Hallam  and 
others.  France,  in  the  last  century,  pro- 
duced Rollin  and  Voltaire;  and  in  the  pres- 
ent centurj'  have  flourished  Thiers,  Guiiot, 
Sismondi,  Mignet,  Michelet  and  the  broth- 
ers Thierry.  In  the  last  century-  Germany 
gave  the  world  a  great  ecclesiastical  histo- 
rian in  the  person  of  Mosheim;  and  in  the 
present  century  a  number  of  German  histo- 
rians have  given  the  world  the  benefit  of 
their  scholarly  researches,  among  whom  we 
may  mention  Niebiihr,  Neander,  Rottcck, 
Heeren,  Schlosser,  Mommsen,  Curtius  and 
Leopold  von  Ranke.  Among  American  his- 
torians the  most  renowned  have  been  Hil- 
dreth,  Prescott,  Bancroft,  Motley,  Lossiug 
and  Parkman. 

All  traditions  and  written  accounts  point 
to  Asia  as  the  cradle  of  the  human  race. 
According  to  the  prevalent  belief  of  modem 
scholars,  mankind  spent  its  infancy  in  the 
region  between  the  Indus  and  the  Euphrates, 
the  Arabian  Sea  and  the  Jaxartes.  The  ex- 
adt  location  of  the  Garden  of  Eden,  or  Par- 
adise, is  not  known.  The  Oriental  nations 
reckon  four  Paradises  in  Asia — one  near 
Damascus,  in  Syria;  another  in  Chaldsea;  a 
third  in  Persia;  and  a  fourth  in  the  island 
of  Ceylon,  where  there  is  a  lofty  mountain 
called  Adam's  Peak. 

Mankind  has  been  classed  by  different 
ethnologists  into  a  variety  of  races  or  types 
of  humanity;  the  most  generally  accepted 
classification  for  the  last  century  being  Blu- 
menbach's  division  into  five  races — the  Cau- 
casian, or  white  race;  the  Mongolian,  or 
yellow  race;  the  Ethiopian,  or  black  race; 
the  American,  or  red  race;  and  the  Malay, 
or  brown  race.  The  only  race  which  has 
figured  in  history  is  the  Caucasian.  The 
history  of  the  civilized  world  is  the  hi.story 
of  the  Caucasian  race.  The  great  historical 
nations  have  belonged  to  this  race.  The 
only  nations  outside  of  the  Caucasian  race 
which  have  attained  to  any  degree  of  civili- 
zation or  played  the  least  part  in  history 
have  been  several  Mongolian  nations,  as  the 
Chinese,  the  Japanese,  the  ancient  Parthi- 
ans,  and  the  modem  Tartars,  Turks,  and 
Magyars  or  Hungarians,  and  two  American 


28 


INTRODUCTION. 


Indian  nations,  the  ancient  Peruvians,  and 
tlie  Aztecs  or  ancient  Mexicans.  The  Ethi- 
opian and  Malay  races  have  never  had  any 
history  nor  z.ny  civilization. 

The  origin  of  nations  has  been  involved 
in  obscurity,  which  has  only  quite  recently 
been  removed  by  the  diligent  study  and  the 
patient  research  of  modern  European  schol- 
ars. Investigation  into  the  affinities  of  the 
various  languages  has  given  us  some  new 
knowledge  upon  this  interesting  and  im- 
portant subject.  Comparing  the  languages 
of  most  of  the  modern  European  nations 
with  those  spoken  by  the  ancient  Romans, 
Greeks,  Medes  and  Persians,  and  Hindoos, 
we  observe  that  all  these  languages  had  a 
common  origin,  entirely  different  from  those 
spoken  by  the  ancient  Chaldees,  Assyrians, 
Phcenicians,  Hebrews,  Arabs  and  Egyp- 
tians; these  latter  being  related  to  each 
other,  but  not  to  those  of  the  nations  pre- 
viously named.  The  former  of  these  lan- 
guages are  called  Aryan,  the  latter  Semitic 
and  Hamitic;  while  the  Central  Asian  Tartar 
nomads  have  a  language  called  Turanian. 
Modern  philologists  have  divided  the  Cau- 
casian race  into  three  great  branches — the 
Aryan,  Indo-European,  or  Japhetic;  the 
Semitic,  or  Shemitic;  and  the  Hamitic.  The 
Arj-an,  or  Indo-European,  branch  embraces 
the  Brahmanic  Hindoos,  the  ancient  Medes 
and  Persians,  and  all  the  European  nations, 
except  the  Laps  and  Fins  of  Northern  Eu- 
rope, the  Magyars  or  Hungarians,  the  Otto- 
man Turks,  and  the  Basques  of  Northern 
Spain,  all  five  of  whom  belong  to  the  Tu- 
ranian or  nomadic  branch  of  the  Mongolian 
race.  The  descendants  of  Europeans  and 
European  colonists  in  America  and  other 
quarters  of  the  globe  of  course  also  belong 
to  the  Aryan  race.  The  Semitic  branch 
comprises  the  Hebrews  or  Israelites,  the 
Arabs,  and  the  ancient  Syrians,  Assyrians, 
Babylonians,  Phcenicians  and  Carthagin- 
ians. The  Hamitic  branch  included  the  an- 
cient Chaldees,  Egyptians  and  Ethiopians. 

The  Aryan  branch  is  called  Japhetic,  be- 
cause it  has  been  supposed  to  be  descended 
from  Japheth;  while  the  Semitic  branch 
is  regarded  as  the  posterity  of  Shem,  and 


the  Hamitic  branch  as  the  children  of  Ham. 
The  name  Arj'an  means  tiller  of  the  soil; 
wherein  this  race  has  differed  from  the  Tu- 
ranian, or  nomadic  races  of  Central  Asia. 
The  ancestors  of  the  Indo-European  nations, 
the  primitive  Aryans  in  prehistoric  ages, 
occupied  that  region  of  Central  Asia  in 
which  was  located  the  ancient  city  of  Bac- 
tra,  the  modern  Balk,  in  Turkestan.  Here 
this  primeval  race  lived  and  attained  to  a 
considerable  degree  of  civilization;  pradlic- 
ing  agriculture  and  cattle-raising,  and  some 
of  the  mechanical  arts,  such  as  weaving  and 
sewing,  metallurgy,  pottery-  manufa<5lure, 
etc.  They  were  also  somewhat  skilled  in 
architedlure,  navigation,  mathematics  and 
astronomy.  They  considered  marriage  a 
sacred  contradl;  and,  unlike  other  Asiatic 
peoples,  they  shunned  polygamy.  Children 
were  regarded  as  the  light  of  the  family  cir- 
cle, as  shown  by  the  meaning  of  the  names 
—boy,  bcstoiver  of  happiness;  girl,  she  that 
comes  rejoicing;  brother,  supporter;  sister, 
friendly.  With  regard  to  the  Arj'an  or  In- 
do-European race,  it  is  found  that  the  names 
of  many  common  objedls  are  very  much 
alike  in  all  the  languages  and  dialecfls 
spoken  by  these  people.  Thus  the  word 
house  in  Greek  is  domes;  in  Latin  donnis; 
in  Sanskrit,  or  ancient  Hindoo,  dama;  in 
Zend,  or  ancient  Persian,  demana;  and  from 
the  same  root  is  derived  our  word  domestic. 
The  words  for  ploughing,  grinding  corn, 
building  houses,  etc.,  are  also  foimd  almost 
similar.  This  demonstrates  that  these  na- 
tions must  have  had  a  common  origin,  and 
that  they  engaged  in  farming,  making 
bread  and  building  hou.ses.  They  also 
counted  up  to  one  hundred,  and  domesti- 
cated the  most  important  animals — the  cow, 
the  horse,  the  sheep,  the  dog,  etc.;  and 
were  acquainted  with  the  most  useful  met- 
als, and  armed  with  iron  hatchets.  The 
primitive  Aryans  were  monotheists  in  relig- 
ion and  worshiped  a  personal  God.  The 
Aryan  or  agricultural  races  had  the  patri- 
archal form  of  government,  like  the  Tura- 
nian or  nomadic  races  of  Central  Asia;  but 
the  father,  or  head  of  the  family,  was  sub- 
jecfl   to   a   council  of   seven   ciders,   whose 


INTRODUCTION. 


29 


chief  was  king,  and  from  whose  decision 
there  was  an  appeal  to  heaven  in  the  ordeal 
of  fire  and  water.  The  Aryans  followed 
their  leaders  and  kings,  and  fixed  the  dis- 
tiuiflion  between  right  and  wrong  by  laws 
and  customs.  All  these  fadls  can  be  proven 
by  the  evidence  of  language,  on  the  author- 
ity of  Max  Miiller  and  other  eminent  phi- 
lologists. 

The  rapid  increase  of  the  Aryan  popula- 
tion in  its  primeval  home  led  to  a  division 
of  this  primitive  people  into  three  branches 
— one  crossing  the  Hindoo-Koosh  and  over- 
spreading the  plateau  of  Iran  and  laying 
the  foundations  of  the  great  Median  and 
Medo-Persian  Empires;  another  moving 
southeastward  across  the  Indus  and  becom- 
ing the  ancestors  of  the  Brahmauic  Hindoos; 
and  a  third  migrating  into  Europe  in  suc- 
cessive hordes,  as  represented  by  the  Pelas- 
gic,  Celtic,  Teutonic  and  Slavonic  nations, 
whose  descendants  now  occupy  the  greater 
part  of  Europe.  These  Aryan  immigrants 
into  Europe  seized  the  lands  of  the  original 
Turanian  inhabitants,  whose  descendants 
are  represented  by  the  modern  Basques  of 
Northern  Spain  and  the  Laps  and  Fins  of 
Northern  Russia  and  Scandinavia. 

The  Aryan  immigrants  into  Europe  occu- 
pied different  portions  of  the  continent. 
The  Pelasgians  settled  in  the  Grecian  and 
Italian  peninsulas  of  Southern  Europa,  and 
founded  the  Greek  and  Roman  nations. 
The  Celts  spread  over  Western  Europe,  em- 
bracing the  Spanish  peninsula,  Gaul  and 
the  British  Isles;  and  became  the  ancestors 
of  the  ancient  Spaniards  and  Gauls,  and 
the  Welsh,  Irish  and  Highland  Scotch. 
The  Teutons  occupied  Central  Europe  and 
the  Scandinavian  peninsula;  and  became 
the  progenitors  of  the  Goths  and  Vandals, 
and  the  modern  Germans,  Danes,  Swedes, 
Norwegians,  Dutch  or  Hollanders,  and  the 
Anglo-Saxons  or  English.  The  Slavonians 
overspread  the  vast  steppes  of  Eastern  Eu- 
rope; and  their  descendants  are  represented 
by  the  ancient  Sarmatians  and  the  modern 
Russians,  Poles,  Bohemians,  Servians,  Bul- 
garians, Bosnians  and  Croatians. 

The  Aryan  or  Indo-European  branch  of 


the  Caucasian  race  has  always  played  the 
leading  part  in  civilization;  and  has  been 
the  most  acflive,  enterprising  and  intelledl- 
ual  in  the  world's  history.  The  Aryans  have 
always  been  peculiarly  the  race  of  progress; 
and  have  surpassed  all  others  in  the  devel- 
opment of  civil  liberty,  the  perfedlion  of 
law,  social  advancement,  and  their  progress 
in  art,  science,  literature,  invention,  and 
mode  of  living.  The  Aryans  alone  have 
originated,  developed  and  perfedted  con- 
stitutional, representative  and  republican 
government.  The  present  and  the  future 
belong  wholly  to  this  highest  type  of  human 
development. 

The  Semitic  branch  has  been  noted  for 
religious  development,  having  given  rise  to 
three  great  monotheistic  religions — Judaism, 
Christianity,  and  Islam  or  Mohammedan- 
ism. The  Hamitic  branch  were  famous 
builders,  and  their  architecflural  strucftures  in 
Chaldsea  and  Egypt  were  noted  for  their 
massive  grandeur.  The  Semitic  and  Hamit- 
ic nations,  after  attaining  a  certain  degree 
of  civilization,  remained  stationary;  and 
their  civilization  has  utterly  perished. 

After  the  dispersion  of  mankind  into 
various  quarters,  men  chose  different  occu- 
pations and  modes  of  living,  according  to 
the  diversities  of  their  places  of  residence. 
The  inhabitants  of  steppes  and  deserts,  in- 
terspersed only  here  and  there  with  fertile 
pasture  grounds,  became  shepherds  and 
roved  with  their  tents  and  herds  from  place 
to  place,  thus  becoming  nomads  or  wander- 
ers; and  their  occupation  was  the  breeding 
of  cattle  and  sheep.  Those  who  occupied 
favorable  districts  on  the  sea-coast  soon  dis- 
covered, as  population  increased  and  their 
resources  developed,  the  advantages  of  their 
situation.  They  accordingly  pracfliced  navi- 
gation and  commerce,  and  sought  for  wealth 
and  comfort,  in  furtherance  of  which  ob- 
jedls  they  ereefled  elegant  dwelling  houses 
and  founded  cities;  whilst  the  inhabitants 
of  less  hospitable  shores  subsisted  by  means 
of  fisheries.  The  dwellers  upon  plains 
adopted  agriculture  and  the  peaceful  arts; 
whilst  the  rude  mountaineer  gave  himself 
up  to  the  cha.se,  and,  moved  by  a  violent  im- 


30 


IN  TROD  UCTION. 


pulse  for  freedom,  found  his  delight  in  wars 
and  battles.  By  taming  wild  cattle,  man 
very  early  procured  for  himself  domesticated 
animals. 

Commerce  was  a  mighty  fadtor  in  the  de- 
velopment and  civilization  of  the  human 
race,  and  the  intercourse  among  nations. 
Those  who  occupied  fruitful  plains,  or  the 
banks  of  navigable  rivers,  carried  on  an  in- 
land trade.  The  inhabitants  of  the  sea-shores 
conducfted  a  coasting  trade.  At  first  men 
exchanged,  or  bartered,  one  article  for 
another.  At  a  later  period  thej'  adopted 
the  plan  of  fixing  a  certain  specified  value 
upon  the  precious  metals,  and  employed 
coined  money  as  an  artificial  and  more  con- 
venient medium  of  exchange.  The  dwell- 
ers in  towns  occupied  themselves  with  me- 
chanical employments  and  inventions;  and 
cultivated  the  arts  and  sciences  for  the  com- 
fort, happiness  and  refinement  of  life  and 
for  mental  culture  and  development. 

In  the  course  of  time  nations  became  di- 
vided into  civilized  and  uncivilized,  as  their 
intelledlual  development  was  furthered  by 
talents  and  commerce,  or  retarded  and 
cramped  by  dullness  and  by  isolation  from 
the  rest  of  mankind.  Uncivilized  nations 
are  either  wild  hordes  under  an  absolute  and 
despotic  chief  who  wields  unlimited  power 
over  his  followers,  or  wandering  nomadic 
tribes,  guided  by  a  leader,  who,  as  father  of 
the  family,  exercises  the  funiflions  of  law- 
giver, governor,  judge  and  high-priest. 
Neither  the  wild  hordes  under  their  des- 
potic chiefs,  occupying  the  unknown  regions 
of  Africa  (Negroes),  the  steppes  and  lofty 
mountain  ranges  of  Asia,  the  primeval 
forests  of  America  ( Indians ),  and  the 
numerous  islands  of  Oceanica  (Malays), 
nor  the  nomadic  races  with  their  patriarchal 
government,  find  any  place  in  history.  This 
subjecft  only  deals  with  those  nations  who 
have  attained  to  .some  degree  of  civilization 
and  have  from  similarity  of  customs  and  for 
mutual  advantage  engaged  in  peaceful  inter- 
course with  each  other,  and  who  have  made 
considerable  progress  in  the  science  of  civil 
government  and  the  development  of  politi- 
cal institutions. 


The  oldest  civilizations  were  those  found 
in  the  Tigris-Euphrates  and  Nile  valleys, 
in  the  Hindoo  peninsula,  and  in  the  remote 
empire  of  China.  The  exa(ft  origin  of  the 
ancient  nations  and  civilizations  is  lost  in 
the  dimness  of  their  remote  antiquity. 
These  regions  were  richly  endowed  by  na- 
ture with  the  resources  necessary  for  sus- 
taining a  dense  population;  and  the  oldest 
historic  empires  accordingly  took  their  rise 
in  the  rich  alluvial  lands  watered  by  the 
Tigris  and  the  Euphrates  in  South-western 
Asia  and  by  the  Nile  in  North-eastern 
Africa. 

Historical  Asia  is  South-western  Asia ; 
where  the  great  Hamitic  and  Semitic  em- 
pires of  Chaldcea,  Assyria  and  Babylonia 
successively  flouri.shed,  in  the  Tigris-Eu- 
phrates valleys;  where  the  Hebrews  and  the 
Pha-nicians  played  their  respecftive  parts  in 
the  world's  historic  drama;  and  where  the 
Aryan  race  finally  came  upon  the  scene  in 
the  appearance  of  the  great  Median  and 
Medo-Persian  Empires  and  the  Graeco-Mace- 
donian  Empire  of  Alexander  the  Great  and 
his  successors,  followed  by  the  Parthian, 
Eastern  Roman  and  New  Persian  Empires; 
after  which  the  Semitic  race  again  prevailed 
in  the  sudden  rise  of  Mohammed's  religion 
and  the  great  empire  founded  by  his  suc- 
cessors; followed  by  the  conquests  of  the 
Seljuk  Turks  from  Tartary,  the  two  centu- 
ries of  warfare  between  Christendom  and 
Islam  for  the  possession  of  the  Holy  Land 
as  represented  in  the  Crusades,  the  terrible 
scourges  of  the  conquering  Mongol  and 
Tartar  hordes  of  Zingis  Khan  and  Tamer- 
lane; and,  lastly,  the  rise  of  the  now-de- 
caying Mohammedan  empires  of  the  Otto- 
man Turks  and  the  modern  Persians. 

All  that  part  of  Asia  north  of  the  Altai 
mountains,  now  known  as  Siberia,  is  a  com- 
paratively barren  region  and  was  unknown 
in  antiquity.  Central  Asia,  now  called  Tar- 
tan,' and  Turkestan,  was  anciently  known  as 
Scythia,  and  was  then  as  now  occupied  b}-^ 
nomadic  hordes  who  have  roamed  over 
those  extensive  pastoral  lands  for  countless 
ages  with  their  flocks  and  herds,  having 
no  fixed  abodes  or  cities  and  no  other  polit- 


INTRODUCTION. 


3» 


ical  arrangements  than  the  patriarchal  form 
of  government.  Accordingly,  the  Turan- 
ian races  inhabiting  that  region  have  played 
no  part  in  history,  except  that  the  Tartar 
and  Mongol  races  inhabiting  those  vast 
steppes  have  at  times  overrun  and  con- 
quered the  civilized  countries  of  South- 
western and  Southern  Asia. 

Thus,  with  the  single  exception  of  Egypt, 
all  the  ancient  Oriental  nations  had  their 
seat  in  Asia.  The  populous  empires  of 
India,  China  and  Japan — though  they  con- 
tributed their  jewels,  spices,  perfumes  and 
silks  to  the  luxury  of  the  people  of  South- 
western Asia — were  almost  unknown  to  the 
ancient  Greeks  and  Romans;  and  though 
their  art  and  literature  are  vast,  these  had 
no  influence  upon  the  general  course  of  the 
world's  progress.  China  and  Japan  are  two 
ancient  empires  which  have  continued  to 
exist  with  but  little  change  to  the  present 
time.  The  nations  of  Farther  India  are 
almost  unknown  to  histon,';  while  Hindoo- 
stan,  the  seat  of  a  dense  Aryan  population 
from  the  earliest  antiquity,  and  one  of  the 
oldest  civilizations,  as  attested  by  vast 
architectural  remains  and  a  copious  religious 
literature,  was  unknown  to  history  until 
Alexander's  invasion,  and  became  .succes- 
sively the  prey  of  Arabian,  Afghan,  Tartar, 
Mongol,  Portuguese   and  British  conquest. 

The  only  historical  part  of  Africa  is 
Northern  Africa,  or  that  part  of  the  conti- 
nent bordering  on  the  Mediterranean  sea 
and  watered  by  the  Nile;  and  the  only  great 
nations  of  ancient  Africa  were  Egypt,  Ethi- 
opia and  Carthage.  All  the  rest  of  the  vast 
continent  was  a  dark  region  wholly  un- 
known to  the  ancient  civilized  nations  of 
South-western  Asia  and  Europe;  and  only 
within  the  last  four  centuries  have  its  West- 
em,  Southern  and  Eastern  coasts  been  dis- 
covered, explored,  taken  possession  of  and 
colonized  by  Europeans;  while  the  interior 
has  been  but  partialh'  visited  by  European 
explorers,  within  the  last  hundred  years. 

Southern  Europe  was  the  seat  of  the 
greatest  tvvo  nations  of  antiquity  —  the 
Greeks  and  the  Romans — the  former  by 
their   literature  and   philosophy  and    their 


political  freedom,  and  the  latter  by  their 
laws  and  political  institutions,  influencing 
all  future  European  nations.  The  other 
nations  of  ancient  Europe  were  barbarians, 
many  of  whom  were  conquered  and  civilized 
by  the  Romans.  The  overthrow  of  the  Ro- 
man dominion  in  the  fifth  century  after 
Christ  entirely  changed  the  current  of 
European  history^  by  a  redistribution  of  its 
population  through  the  migrations  and  con- 
quests of  its  vast  hordes  of  Northern  bar- 
barians, who  fourteen  centuries  ago  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  great  nations  of  modern 
Europe.  America  and  Oceanica  were  wholly 
unknown  to  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  the 
Old  World,  and  have  only  occupied  the  field 
of  historj'  since  their  discovery  and  settle- 
ment by  Europeans  within  the  last  four  cen- 
turies. 

History  deals  only  with  civilized  man, 
and  history  proper  only  begins  with  the 
origin  of  civilized  nations  and  with  the 
commencement  of  historical  records.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  cradle  of  civilization — if  not 
the  cradle  of  the  human  race — was  the  fer- 
tile alluvial  Tigris-Euphrates  and  Nile  val- 
leys, where,  with  the  dawn  of  civilization, 
flourished  the  old  Chaldaean  and  Egyptian 
empires — the  most  remote  of  historical 
states  of  antiquity.  Historj-  begins  with 
Egypt,  the  oldest  of  historical  nations. 

Civilization  and  human  progress  have  in 
the  main  followed  the  course  of  the  sun.  In 
the  East  arose  those  great  nations  and  cities 
from  which  other  lands  have  derived  a  part 
of  their  civil  institutions,  their  religion  and 
their  culture.  In  the  East,  the  land  of  the 
camel,  the  "ship  of  the  desert,"  originated 
that  caravan  trade  which  contributed  so 
vastly  to  human  progress.  To  protedt  them- 
selves against  the  rude  Bedouins,  the  Ori- 
ental merchants  traveled  in  large  companies, 
often  armed,  conveying  their  wares  upon 
the  backs  of  camels  from  place  to  place. 
These  connnercial  journeys  gave  rise  to  many 
commercial  cities  and  centers  of  trade,  oc- 
casioned the  erection  of  store-houses  and 
caravansaries,  and  led  to  intercourse  between 
distant  nations  and  to  an  interchange  of  pro- 
du(5lions,    religious   institutions   and  .social 


INTRODUCTION. 


policy.  Temples  and  oracles  of  celebrity 
often  served  for  markets  and  warehouses. 
In  the  East  all  the  great  religions  took  their 
rise  and  gained  their  full  development,  as 
the  Orientals  have  always  been  the  most 
contemplative  on  all  that  concerns  man's 
relations  to  the  Deity.  In  the  East  the 
patriarchal  and  despotic  governments  alone 
prevailed.  Where  the  system  of  castes  pre- 
vailed, the  priests  and  soldiers  constituted 
the  privileged  classes,  from  both  of  which 
ultimately  arose  the  unlimited  kingly  power; 
and  the  officers  of  state  were  regarded  as 
slaves  and  menials,  without  personal  rights 
or  property.  The  king,  who  was  regarded 
with  almost  as  much  reverence  as  the  Deity, 
disposed  of  the  lives  and  possessions  of  his 
subjeifls  at  will.  He  gave  and  took  away 
at  his  pleasure,  and  no  one  dared  to  appear 
before  him  without  prostrating  his  body  on 
the  ground.  He  lived  like  a  god,  in  the 
midst  of  pleasure  and  enjoyment,  surrounded 
by  hosts  of  slaves,  who  obeyed  his  wishes, 
executed  his  orders,  and  submitted  them- 
selves to  his  pleasures;  and  he  was  surround- 
ed by  all  the  wealth  and  possessions,  by  all 
the  pomp  and  splendor,  of  the  world.  In  these 
Oriental  governments  laws  and  human 
rights  were  nowhere;  despotism  and  .slavery 
prevlailed;  and  consequently  there  was  no 
incentive  to  vital  energy  and  no  capability 
of  permanent  civilization.  For  this  reason 
all  Oriental  states  have  become  the  easy 
prey  of  foreign  conquerors,  and  their  early 
civilization  has  perished  or  remained  sta- 
tionary. 

By  original  disposition,  the  Orientals  are 
more  inclined  to  contemplative  ease  and  en- 
joyment than  to  adlive  exertion;  and  for 
this  reason  they  have  never  attained  to  free- 
dom and  spontaneous  acfkivity,  but  have 
quietly  submitted  to  their  native  rulers,  or 
groaned  under  the  yoke  of  foreign  oppress- 
ors. After  reaching  a  certain  degree  of 
civilization,  they  submitted  themselves  to 
an  unenterprising  pursuit  of  pleasure,  and 
thus  by  degrees  became  .slothful  and  effemi- 
nate. Their  pracflice  of  polygamy  further 
promoted  their  effeminacy.  Oriental  archi- 
tedlure  was  noted  for  its  gigantic  designs 


and  its  imposing  grandeur;  but  it  did  not 
display  the  symmetry,  harmony  and  utility 
characfteristic  of  the  architedlure  of  a  free 
people.  Slavery  paralyzed  every  outward 
manifestation  of  Oriental  life. 

Besides  being  the  cradle  of  the  human 
race,  Asia  is  the  birth-place  of  the  great  re- 
ligions and  the  home  of  absolute  despotism. 
The  two  great  pantheistic  religions — Brah- 
manism  and  Buddhism;  also  the  great  mon- 
otheistic religions — Zoroastrianism,  Juda- 
ism, Christianity  and  Mohammedanism — 
arose  in  Asia;  while  Asiatic  governments 
to-day  are  what  they  have  been  from  time 
immemorial — absolute  monarchies,  or  des- 
potisms; no  republic  or  constitutional  mon- 
archy ever  having  flourished  on  Asiatic  soil. 

Europe,  on  the  contrary,  inhabited  by  the 
progressive  Aryan  race,  has  carried  political 
institutions  to  the  highest  state  of  develop- 
ment; civil,  political,  and  religious  liberty 
having  had  a  steady  growth.  Asiatic  civili- 
zation has  been  stationary,  while  European 
civilization  has  been  progressive.  The 
Asiatics  are  passive,  submissive,  given  to 
contemplative  ea.se  and  disinclined  to  adlive 
exertion.  The  Europeans  are  a(5live,  ener- 
getic, vigilant  and  aggressive.  Europe  has 
also  colonized  other  portions  of  the  globe; 
the  greater  part  of  the  present  populations 
of  North  and  South  America  being  the  de- 
scendants of  Europeans  who  settled  in  the 
New  World,  and  drove  away,  or  assimilated 
with,  the  aborigines;  while  Europeans  have 
also  settled  in  portions  of  Africa,  Asia  and 
Oceanica.  The  Asiatics,  on  the  other  hand, 
do  not  colonize. 

In  the  Prehi.storic  Ages — that  is,  the  ages 
before  recorded  history — the  patriarchal ioxva. 
of  government  prevailed;  each  father,  or 
head  of  a  family,  governing  the  whole  family. 
Since  the  formation  of  nations  there  have 
been  various  forms  of  governments — Autoc- 
racy, despotism,  or  absolute  monarchy,  where 
the  supreme  power  is  vested  in  the  monarch 
himself,  without  anj'  restraint  or  limitation; 
Limited,  or  constitutional  monarchy,  where 
the  power  of  the  monarch  is  limited  by  law 
or  by  constitutions  giving  the  nobility,  or 
aristocracy,  and  the  masses  some  share  in 


INTRODUCTION. 


33 


the  government;  Aristocracy,  or  government 
by  nobles  or  aristocrats;  Theocracy,  or  gov- 
ernment by  the  Church  in  the  name  of  the 
Deity;  Hierarchy ,  or  government  by  priests; 
Pure  democracy,  or  government  by  the  peo- 
ple diredlly;  ■a.wA  Representative  democracy,  or 
republicanism,  or  government  by  the  people 
through  their  chosen  representatives.  There 
have  been  several  kinds  of  republics — aris- 
tocratic, where  the  few  have  governed,  and 
democratic,  where  the  masses  through  their 
chosen  representatives  are  the  rulers.  The 
best  examples  of  pure  democracy  were  the 
governments  of  ancient  Athens  and  ancient 
Rome,  where  the  people  themselves  assem- 
bled in  a  body  for  purposes  of  legislation. 
This  form  of  democratic  government  can 
only  exist  where  a  state  consists  of  but  a 
single  city  with  its  surrounding  territory,  as 
in  the  cases  of  the  two  ancient  republics 
just  cited;  and  is  utterly  impossible  among 
a  population  distributed  over  a  vast  extent 
of  country. 

Monarchs  are  called  by  different  titles,  as 
Emperor,  King,  Prince,  Duke,  Sultan,  or 
Czar.  The  savage  and  barbarous  tribes  of 
Asia,  Africa,  America  and  Oceanica  are  gov- 
erned by  their  chiefs;  and  their  govern- 
ments are  simple,  as  were  those  of  all  the 
original  nations.  Even  the  civilized  Asiatic 
nations  have  always  been  despotisms.  It 
was  only  on  the  soil  of  Europe,  occupied  by 
the  progressive  Aryan  race,  that  civil  lib- 
erty was  bom,  and  where  the  masses  first 
obtained  any  share  of  political  power.  A 
great  hindrance  to  civil  freedom  among 
ancient  Asiatic  and  African  nations  was  the 
system  of  castes,  by  which  men  were  sepa- 
rated according  to  their  occupations  and 
conditions,  which  were  transmitted  without 
the  slightest  change  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration. The  priests,  who  alone  possessed  a 
knowledge  of  religious  customs  and  institu- 
tions, and  who  bequeathed  their  knowledge 
to  their  descendants,  comprised  the  first 
caste.  The  soldiers  constituted  the  second 
caste,  and  shared  with  the  priests  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  people.  The  third  caste 
were  the  tillers  of  the  soil,  the  fourth  caste 
the  artisans,  and  the   fifth  caste  the  shep- 


herds, who  were  universally  despi.sed.  Any 
one  who  violated  the  rules  of  ca.ste  became 
an  outcast.  The  system  of  castes  prevailed 
for  the  longest  time  in  its  purest  state  in 
India  and  Egypt. 

Man  is  naturally  a  religious  being.  A 
world-wide  religious  sentiment  seems  to  pre- 
vail, but  there  have  been  many  varieties  or 
manifestations  of  this  .sentiment.  Thus  we 
have  Monotheism,  or  the  belief  in  one  God; 
Polytheism,  or  the  belief  in  many  gods;  Pan- 
theism, or  the  system  which  regards  the 
whole  universe,  with  all  its  laws  and  the 
different  manifestations  of  nature,  as  the 
Supreme  Being.  Many  polytheistic  and 
pantheistic  nations  have  made  idols,  or  im- 
ages, as  figures  or  representations  of  their 
deities;  and  for  this  rea.son  have  been  called 
idolators,  pagans  or  heathen.  The  four 
great  monotheistic  religions  of  the  world 
have  been  the  ancient  Persian  religion  of 
Zoroaster;  Judaism,  or  the  religion  of  the 
Jews;  Christianity;  and  Islam,  or  Moham- 
medanism. The  leading  polytheistic  relig- 
ions were  those  of  the  ancient  Egyptians, 
Chaldceans,  Assyrians,  Babylonians,  Phoe- 
nicians, Greeks,  Romans  and  Scandina- 
vians. The  chief  pantheistic  religions  have 
been  the  two  great  religions  of  Hindoo  or- 
igin— Brahmanism  and  Buddhism. 

It  is  believed  that  originally  monotheism 
was  universal;  but  that  sometime  during 
the  prehistoric  ages,  after  the  dispersion  of 
mankind  into  various  quarters,  most  nations 
fell  into  polytheism  and  idolatry.  Even 
among  polytheistic  religions  there  is  one 
Supreme  Being,  who  is  superior  to  and 
above  all  the  other  deities;  and  for  this 
reason  all  religions  have  been  to  some  ex 
tent  regarded  as  monotheistic.  There  are 
also  some  polytheistic  features  about  all 
monotheistic  religions,  as  the  belief  in  the 
existence  of  angels,  who,  as  dwelling  in  the 
celestial  world,  are  beings  superior  to  mor- 
tals. Among  ancient  nations  the  only  truly 
monotheistic  religions  were  those  of  the 
Hebrews  and  the  Medo-Persians — the  one 
a  Semitic  and  the  other  an  Aryan  people. 

From   time  immemorial  the  custom   has 
prevailed   among    pagan   and    polytheistic 


34 


INTRODUCTION. 


nations  of  making  idols  or  images  of  wood, 
stone,  metal  or  clay,  to  represent  their  dei- 
ties; and  these  have  been  fashioned  into  a 
great  variety  of  forms.  Temples  and  altars 
have  been  erecfted  for  the  worship  of  these 
deities;  and  sacrifices  have  been  offered  to 
them,  partly  to  appease  their  wrath,  and 
partly  to  obtain  their  favor.  These  sacrifices 
have  varied  in  charadler  with  the  civiliza- 
tion cf  the  people  who  have  offered  them. 
The  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  in  their 
joyous  festivals  to  their  gods,  socially  con- 
sumed the  fruits  of  the  earth  and  animals 
from  the  firstling  of  a  flock  to  the  solemn 
sacrifice  of  a  hecatomb  (a  hundred  oxen). 
Savage  tribes  have  slaughtered  human  be- 
ings upon  their  altars,  to  appease  by  blood 
the  wrath  of  their  offended  deities.  The 
Phoenicians  and  Syrians  placed  their  own 
children  in  the  arms  of  a  red-hot  idol,  Mo- 
loch. At  first  the  image  or  idol  was  only  a 
visible  symbol  of  a  spiritual  conception  or 
of  an  invisible  power;  but  this  higher  signi- 
fication often  gave  way  in  the  progress  of 
time  to  the  worship  of  the  inanimate  image 
itself;  the  priests  only  being  sensible  of  any 
deeper  meaning,  which  they  kept  from  the 
people  for  purposes  of  their  own. 


To  further  delude  the  masses,  the  priests 
invented  legends,  fables  and  myths  about 
their  gods,  clothed  them  in  poetic  fancy, 
and  thus  originated  mythology,  or  the 
science  of  their  gods.  In  the.se  legends, 
fables  and  myths,  the  deeds  of  the  different 
gods  and  their  dealings  with  men  were  de- 
scribed in  enigmatical  allusions,  allegories 
and  figurative  expressions.  The  nations 
with  the  greatest  amount  of  creative  imagi- 
nation and  religious  impulse  possessed  the 
richer  mythology.  These  stories  of  the 
gods  incited  the  people  to  superstition;  and 
the  solemn  worship  in  the  temples  and 
sacred  groves,  with  their  mysterious  cere- 
monies and  symbolical  usages,  maintained 
a  feeling  of  veneration  and  religious  awe. 
To  inspire  in  the  people  a  feeling  of  the  di- 
vine presence,  sacred  places  and  temples 
were  provided  with  oracles,  from  which  the 
superstitious  multitude  might  get  light  into 
the  mysteries  of  the  future,  in  obscure  and 
ambiguous  language.  In  this  way  and  by 
such  means  the  priesthood  swayed  the 
masses  in  most  countries;  and  thus  secured 
power,  honor  and  wealth  for  themselves. 
The  people  were  enslaved  by  ignorance, 
credulity,  superstition  and  fear. 


BRANCHES   OF  THE  CAUCASIAN,  THE  ONLY   HISTORICAL   RACE 


L   Aryan,  or  Indo-European  Branch. 

1.  Hindoos. 

2.  Medes  and  Persians. 

3.  Hellenes,  or  Greeks. 

4.  Latin,  or  Romanic  Nations. 

1.  Ancient  Romans. 

2.  Italians. 

3.  French. 

4.  Spaniards  and  Spanish  Americans. 

5.  Portuguese  and  Brazilians. 

6.  Flemings,  or  Belgians. 

7.  Roumanians. 

5.  Germanic  or  Teutonic  Nations. 

1.  Germans. 

2.  Danes.  "j 

3.  Swedes.  >■  Scandinavians. 

4.  Norwegians.  J 

5.  Dutch,  or  Hollanders. 

6.  English  and  Anglo-American  (A-jglo-Saxon). 

7.  Scotch  Lowlanders. 

8.  Norman-French. 


5.  Celtic  N.\tions. 

1.  Ancient  Britons,  Gauls  and  Spaniards. 

2.  Irish,  Welsh,  and  Scotch  Highlanders. 

3.  Bretons  (West  of  France). 

7.  Sl.wonic  N.ations. 

1.  Russians. 

2.  Poles. 

3.  Bohemians. 

4.  Servians. 

5.  Bulgarians. 

6.  Bosnians. 

7.  Croatians. 

II.  Semitic  Branch. 

1.  Hebrews,  or  Israelites. 

2.  Arabs. 

3.  Syrians. 

4.  Assyrians  and  Later  Baiivloniaiis. 

5.  Phcenicians  and  Carthaginians. 

III.  Hamitic  Branch. 

1.  Chaldees,  or  Early  Babyi-ontans. 

2.  Egyptians  and  Ethiopians. 


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20 


30 


PART   FIRST. 


ANCIENT   HISTORY. 


Medean  Noble— Persian  Noble— Persias. 


Assyrian  Warrior  with  Wicker  Shield— War- 
rior WITH  RoDND  Shield — Archer. 


ASSYRIAN— Assyrian  Noble— Assyrian  CotTRTIE«  Persian     Warrior  —  Persian     Noblk— Persiak 

Warrior. 


MEDIA,   ASSYRIA.  PERSIA. 


CHAPTER   I. 


ANCIEiNT    EGYPT. 


SECTION    I.— THE    COUNTRY   AND    PEOPLE. 


:;>)lLTHOUGH  Asia  was  the  cra- 
dle of  the  human  race,  the  cra- 
dle of  civilization  was  in  the 
Nile  valley,  which,  from  the 
island  of  Elephantine,  in  the 
Nile,  northward  to  the  Mediterranean  .sea, 
a  distance  of  five  hundred  and  twenty-six 
miles,  was  the  seat  of  ancient  Egj'pt,  "the 
mother  of  the  arts  and  .sciences. ' '  In  Egypt 
■we  first  find  a  civil  government  and  political 
institutions  established;  and  although  Eg>^pt 
■may  not  be  the  oldest  nation,  Egyptian  his- 
tor>'  is  the  oldest  histor}-.  The  monuments, 
records  and  literature  of  Egypt  are  far  more 
ancient  than  those  of  Chaldaea  and  India, 
the  next  two  oldest  nations.  The  ruins  and 
monuments  of  ancient  civilization  found  in 
the  Nile  valley  render  that  countrj-  one  of 
-the  most  interesting  on  the  globe.  While 
the  progress  of  other  nations  from  ignorance 
and  rudeness  to  art  and  civilization  may  be 
easil}-  traced,  Eg}"pt  appears  in  the  earliest 
twilight  of  history  a  great,  powerful  and 
highly  civilized  nation;  and  her  gigantic 
architectural  works  are  the  most  wonderful, 
as  well  as  the  most  ancient  in  the  world, 
showing  a  .skill  in  the  quarn-ing,  tran.sport- 
ing,  car\'ing  and  joining  of  stone  which 
modem  architedls  may  admire  but  are  un- 
able to  surpass. 

From  the  earliest  antiquity-  Egypt  has 
been  called  "the  Gift  of  the  Nile."  From 
time  immemorial  this  renowned  land,  in  the 
midst  of  surrounding  deserts,  has  been  one 
■of  the  most  fertile  regions  of  the  globe,  and 
was  in  consequence  the  great  granary  of  an- 
tiquity. This  unsurpassed  fertility  is  attrib- 
\itable  to  the  annual  overflow  of  the  Nile, 

1— 3.-U.  H. 


occasioned  by  the  heav)-  rainfalls  in  the  up- 
lands of  Abyssinia ;  so  that  this  mighty 
stream,  the  only  river  of  ICgypt,  in  its  whole 
course  through  the  country  from  south  to 
north,  by  its  mud  deposits  renews  yearl}^  the 
.soil  of  this  narrow  valley,  which  really  con- 
stituted ancient  Egypt,  and  who.se  average 
width,  from  the  modem  city  of  Cairo  .south 
to  the  First  Cataracl,  does  not  exceed  fifteen 
miles.  The  Nile  discharges  its  waters  into 
the  Mediterranean  through  three  distindt 
channels,  which  branch  off  from  each  other 
about  ninety  miles  from  the  sea,  and  which 
enclose  the  region  called  the  Delta,  from  its 
resemblance  in  form  to  the  Greek  letter  of 
that  name.  The  Delta  has  always  been  a 
region  of  unsurpassed  fertility.  The  spon- 
taneous growth  of  the  date-palm  furnished 
the  people  with  a  cheap  and  abundant  article 
of  food  ;  and  the  immense  yield,  with  com- 
parativel}-  slight  labor,  of  large  crops  of  ce- 
reals, because  of  the  natural  fertility  of  the 
soil,  rendered  this  region,  from  primitive 
times,  capable  of  sustaining  a  dense  popula- 
tion, and  made  it  the  primeval  seat  of  organ- 
ized human  society. 

Ancient  Egypt  was  divided  into  three 
geographical  seclion.s — the  Thebais,  or  Up- 
per Egypt,  in  the  south  ;  the  Heptanomis, 
or  Middle  Egypt,  in  the  centre ;  and  the 
Delta,  or  Lower  Egi'pt,  in  tlie'north.  The 
chief  city  of  the  Thebais  was  the  ' '  hundred- 
gated  Thebes,"  whose  ruins,  extending  for 
seven  miles  on  both  banks  of  the  Nile,  a.s- 
tonish  the  modern  traveler,  as  he  gazes  upon 
the  remains  of  magnificent  temples,  .splendid, 
palaces,  colossal  statues,  obelisks,  .sphinxes, 
tombs  hewn  in  the  solid  rock,  stibterranean 


41 


42 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


catacombs,  and  the  gigantic  statue  of  Mem- 
non.  Karnak  and  Luxor  are  the  portions 
of  Thebes  which  present  the  most  stately 
ruins,  the  most  imposing  being  the  great 
temple  at  the  former  place.  The  most  an- 
cient city  of  Upper  Eg>'pt  was  This,  after- 
ward called  Abj'dos.  Other  cities  of  this 
se(5lion  were  Lj'copolis,  Latopolis,  Antasop- 
oli.s  and  Ombos.  The  southernmost  points 
of  Egy'pt  were  Syene  and  the  island  of  Ele- 
phantine, in  the  Nile.  The  leading  city  of 
the  Heptanomis  was  Memphis,  on  the  west 
side  of  the  Nile,  founded  \iy  Menes,  the  first 
Egj'ptian  king,  and  whose  wonderful  ancient 
splendor  is  now  attested  hy  its  ruins.  In 
the  vicinitj'  of  Memphis  was  the  famous  Lab- 
j-rinth,  and  here  also  are  the  great  Pj-ramids 
of  Ghizeli — the  most  imposing  monuments 
ever  eredted  by  human  hands.  Other  famous 
cities  of  Middle  Eg3'pt  were  Heracleopolis, 
Hermopolis  and  Letopolis.  The  Delta  was, 
in  ancient  times,  thicklj'  studded  with  cities, 
chief  of  which  were  Avaris,  or  Tanis,  Sais, 
Bubastis,  Mendes,  Rameses,  Heliopolis,  Mag- 
dolon,  Pelusium,  Canopus  and  Hermopolis. 
The  famous  Greek  city  of  Alexandria,  on 
the  western  side  of  the  Delta,  was,  in  the 


later  days  of  antiquity,  the  metropolis  of 
Egypt,  and  from  its  location  it  became  the 
gi2at  commercial  center  of  the  civilized 
world,  while  being  also  the  seat  of  learning 
and  civilization. 

To  the  .south  of  ancient  Egypt,  in  the  re- 
gion now  embracing  Nubia  and  Aby,ssinia, 
was  the  ancient  Ethiopia,  whose  people  had 
also  attained  a  high  state  of  civilization,  as 
is  fully  proven  b}-  the  existence  of  ruins 
along  that  portion  of  the  Nile  valley  similar 
to  those  of  Egypt.  On  the  west  of  Egypt 
was  the  great  Libyan  Desert,  now  called  the 
Sahara. 

The  population  of  ancient  Egypt  is  known 
to  have  been  at  least  five  millions,  and  may 
have  been  seven  millions.  They  belonged 
to  the  Hamitic  branch  of  the  Caucasian  race, 
and  originally  came  from  Asia,  being,  ac- 
cording to  the  Hebrew  account,  the  descend- 
ants of  Misraim,  the  grandson  of  Ham. 
They  were  a  brown  race,  mild  in  their  gen- 
eral charadter,  polished  in  their  manners, 
and  were  by  nature  obedient  and  religious. 
They  were  cleanly  in  their  habits  and  food, 
and  in  con.sequence  were  a  healthy,  hardy 
people. 


SECTION  II.— SOURCES  OF  EGYPTIAN  HISTORY, 


HE  historj-  of  Eg^'pt  dates  back 
to  the  most  remote  antiquity. 
The  early  Egyptians  believed 
that  there  had  been  a  time 
when  their  ancestors  were  sav- 
ages and  cannibals,  dwelling  in  caves  in 
those  ridges  of  sandstone  which  border  the 
valley  of  the  Nile  on  the  east ;  and  that 
their  greatest  benefadtors  were  Osiris  and 
Isis,  who  rai.sed  them  into  a  devout  and  civ- 
ilized people,  eating  bread,  drinking  wine 
and  beer,  and  planting  the  olive.  For  this 
reason  the  worship  of  Osiris  and  Isis  became 
general  throughout  Egypt,  while  the  differ- 
ent cities  and  nomes  had  their  own  respect- 
ive local  deities.  According  to  Manetho, 
a  native  Egyptian  historian  of  the  later 
days  of  antiquit)-,  the  first  rulers  of  Egypt 


were  gods,  spirits,  demigods,  and  manes,  or 
human  souls ;  which  amounts  to  saying 
that  the  earliest  history  of  Egypt,  like  that 
of  most  other  countries,  is  unknown  or  in- 
volved in  the  obscurity  and  uncertainty  of 
legend  and  fable. 

The  history  of  this  great  ancient  people 
has  been  derived  from  several  sources — the 
historical  writings  of  the  ancient  Greek  his- 
torians, Herodotus  and  Diodorus,  and  the 
native  Egyptian  priest  Manetho,  and  in 
modern  times  from  the  deciphering  of  the 
inscriptions  on  the  Egyptian  monuments  and 
from  the  discoven-  of  the  records  on  rolls  of 
pap^TUS  found  in  the  tombs. 

The  ancient  sources  of  Egyptian  chronol- 
og\-  are  obscure  and  conflicfting.  The  Greek 
historians  represented  the  Egyptians  as  the 


S()('A'C7-:S    OF   EGYPTJAX    Jf/SICN): 


43 


first  race  of  nieu.  When  Herodotus  visited 
Eg\'pt,  about  the  middle  of  the  fifth  centurj- 
before  Christ,  the  native  priests  read  to  him, 
from  rolls  of  pap>TUS,  the  names  of  three 
hundred  and  forty-one  kings,  from  Menes, 
the  founder  of  the  monarchy,  to  Seti.  In 
the  great  temple  of  Thebes  the  priests  showed 
Herodotus  the  wooden  images  of  three  hun- 
dred and  forty-five  priests,  who,  from  father 
to  son,  had  held  the  sacerdotal  office  during 
the  reigns  of  these  kings.  From  these  data 
Herodotus  estimated  the  antiquity  of  Egj'pt 
to  have  been  nearly  twelve  thousand  years, 
coiniting  three  hundred  and  forty  genera- 
tions from  Menes  to  Seti,  with  three  gener- 
ations to  each  century,  and  reckoning  a 
centur>-  and  a  half  from  the  beginning  of 
Seti's  reign  to  the  Persian  conquest  of  Egypt, 
B.  C.  525,  which  latter  event  had  occurred 
about  seventy-five  years  before  the  visit  of 
the  "Father  of  Histon,-"  to  this  celebrated 
land.  According  to  this  computation,  based 
upon  the  recorded  traditions  of  the  Egyptian 
priests,  the  founding  of  the  Egyptian  mon- 
archy by  Menes  occurred  more  than  twelve 
thousand  five  hinidred  j-ears  before  Christ. 

In  the  first  century  before  Christ,  Diodo- 
rus  Siculus,  another  Greek  historian,  also 
visited  this  renowned  land,  and  to  him  the 
priests  read  from  their  sacred  books  the 
names  of  four  hundred  and  sevent}'  kings, 
beginning  with  Menes,  with  accounts  of 
their  appearance,  stature  and  actions.  From 
the  information  he  thus  received,  giving 
three  generations  to  a  century,  Diodorus 
computed  the  founding  of  the  kingdom  by 
Menes  at  nearlj^  seventeen  thousand  years 
before  his  time.  But  careful  research  re- 
vealed to  him  many  errors  in  the  tradition- 
ary records,  and  his  correcfled  accounts  assign 
the  founding  of  the  Old  Empire  by  Menes 
at  4800  B.  C. 

About  three  centuries  before  Christ,  the 
learned  Greek  antiquarian,  Eratosthenes, 
librarian  of  Alexandria,  copied  the  names 
of  thirt>--eight  Theban  kings  from  the  holj' 
books  of  Thebes,  which  list  W'as  finished  b\' 
Apollodorus  by  adding  the  names  of  fifty- 
three  more,  thus  giving  a  full  list  of  ninetx- 
one  kings. 


In  the  third  centurj*  before  Christ,  an 
Egyptian  priest,  named  Manetho,  compiled 
a  history  of  his  country  in  three  volumes, 
giving  the  reigns  of  all  the  kings  from  the 
founding  of  the  monarchy  by  Menes  to  the 
first  Persian  conquest  of  Egypt,  525  B.  C, 
through  twenty-six  dynasties,  and  through 
four  more  dynasties  until  the  final  Persian 
conquest  in  346  B.  C,  making  thirty  dynas- 
ties in  all.  This  work  was  afterward  lost, 
but  fragments  of  it  were  transcribed  by  Jo- 
sephus,  Julius  Africanus,  Eusebius,  Syncel- 
lus,  and  other  historians,  and  thus  handed 
down  to  future  generations.  According  to 
Manetho' s  calculation,  the  founding  of  the 
kingdom  by  Menes  occurred  in  the  year  5706 
B.  C.  in  the  Egyptian  reckoning,  and  in  the 
year  5702  B.  C.  of  the  Julian  calendar. 
Manetho' s  record  of  the  first  seventeen  dy- 
nasties, embracing  the  periods  of  the  Old 
Empire  and  the  Middle  Empire,  is  ver>'  ob- 
scure, on  account  of  fa(5ts  and  dates  found 
recorded  in  the  monumental  inscriptions  of 
that  long  period  of  over  twelve  centuries ; 
and  it  is  hard  to  decide  whether  the  thirty 
dynasties  w-ere  consecutive,  or  whether  sev- 
eral of  them  were  contemporaneous.  This 
fadl  has  made  it  difficult  to  fix  the  exacft  or 
approximate  date  of  the  establishment  of 
the  Old  Empire  by  Menes. 

A  list  of  the  names  of  kings  was  also  pre- 
ser\-ed  in  the  Turin  Papyrus,  recorded  more 
than  a  thousand  years  before  the  Christian 
era.  Other  sources  of  ancient  EgA'ptian  his- 
tory are  the  allusions  made  to  that  country 
in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures. 

In  the  past  century  our  knowledge  of  this 
famous  land  has  been  immen.sely  extended 
by  the  discovery  of  the  art  of  deciphering 
the  inscriptions  which  this  ancient  people 
lavishly  car\-ed  on  their  buildings  and  mon- 
uments, particularly  their  obelisks,  painted 
on  the  frescoed  insides  of  their  tombs,  and 
adlually  cut  on  nearly  all  objedls  of  art  or 
use.  These  writings  and  carvings  were  in 
the  character  of  what  are  known  as  hiero- 
glyphics, a  Greek  word  signifying  sacred 
carvings  or  priestly  writing  The  knowl- 
edge of  the  reading  of  these  inscriptions  per- 
ished with  the  decay  of  ancient  Egypt,  and 


44 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


for  many  centuries  the  tenn ' '  hieroglyphics ' ' 
was  synonymous  with  everything  mysteri- 
ous. 

The  unraveHng  of  this  mystery  was 
brought  about  by  an  interesting  incident. 
During  Bonaparte's  invasion  of  Egypt  in 
1798,  a  French  engineer,  while  engaged  in 
digging  the  foundation  of  a  fort  near  the 
Rosetta  mouth  of  the  Nile,  discovered  a  stone 
tablet  about  three  feet  long,  on  which  was 
car\'ed  an  inscription  in  three  different  char- 
adlers.  This  tablet  has  become  celebrated 
as  the  Rosetta  Stone.  The  lower  of  the  three 
texts  was  Greek,  and  ea.sily  tran.slated;  the 
upper  text  was  in  the  hieroglyphic  style, 
while  the  middle  text  was  in  a  character 
since  styled  demotic,  meaning  the  writing  of 
the  common  people  (from  rt'cwoi-,  the  people). 
Copies  of  this  inscription  were  circulated 
among  the  learned  men  of  Europe,  and  after 
long  and  patient  efforts  the  alphabet  of  the 
hieroglyphics  was  discovered ;  so  that  these 
carved  in.scriptions  on  old  Eg\'ptian  works 
of  art  and  archite(5lure  can  now  be  easih'  and 
correcflly  read,  thus  giving  an  abundance  of 
new  light  on  the  historj'  of  this  wonderful 
land  of  antiquity.  The  Ro.setta  Stone  was 
car\-ed    about    ig6  B.  C,  and  was  an  ordi- 


nance of  the  Egyptian  priests  decreeing 
honors  to  Ptolemy  Epiphanes,  one  of  the 
famous  Greek  dynasty  who  governed  Egj'pt 
during  the  first  three  centuries  before  Christ, 
and  that  accounts  for  the  existence  of  the 
three  texts  on  the  tablet.  The  great  task 
of  deciphering  these  inscriptions  was  chiefly 
the  work  of  the  noted  French  savant,  Cham- 
pollion. 

On  account  of  the  obscurity  and  uncer- 
tainty of  early  Eg}'ptian  chronology,  modem 
historians  and  Egj'ptologists  have  differed 
widely  as  to  the  antiquity  of  this  most  an- 
cient monarch}-.  The  French  Egyptolo- 
gists, headed  by  M.  Mariette,  place  the 
founding  of  the  First  Dynasty  by  Menes  at 
5004  B.  C.  The  German  Orientalists  and 
Egj'ptologists  differ,  Bockh  fixing  the  date 
at  5702  B.  C,  Dr.  Brugsch  at  4455  B.  C, 
Lauth  at  4157  B.  C,  Professor  Lepsius  at 
3892  B.  C,  Baron  Bunsen  at  3059  B.  C,  and 
Dr.  Duncker  at  3233  B.  C.  The  English 
Egyptologists,  at  the  head  of  whom  stands 
Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson,  regard  the  year 
2700  B.  C.  as  about  the  approximate  date; 
and,  as  it  is  necessarj'  to  have  some  fixed 
chronological  basis,  we  will  follow  the  En- 
glish view  in  the  present  work. 


SECTION   III.— POLITICAL   HISTORY. 


|HE  history  of  ancient  Egypt  has 
been  divided  into  three  di.s- 
tin(5live  periods.  The  Old 
Empire  extended  from  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  First  Dy- 
nasty at  Memphis  by  Menes,  in  the  very 
earliest  times,  to  the  conquest  of  all  Egypt 
by  the  Hyksos,  or  Shepherd  Kings,  about 
1900  B.  C.  The  Middle  Empire — the  epoch 
of  the  rule  of  the  Hyksos  over  the  whole 
country — embraced  the  period  from  1900  B. 
C,  to  the  expulsion  of  the  Shepherd  Kings 
in  1600  B.  C.  The  New  Empire  lasted  over 
a  thousand  years,  from  1600  B.  C.  to  the 
Persian  conquest  of  Egypt  in  525  B.  C.  , 
since  which  time  this  famous  land  has  not 
been  governed  b>'  a  nati\-e  prince.     The  New 


Empire  was  the  most  brilliant  period  of 
Egyptian  history,  and  ma}^  be  subdivided 
into  two  sharply-distinguished  epochs — the 
grand  age,  from  1600  B.C.  to  1200  B.  C; 
and   the  age  of  decay,  from   1200  B.  C.  to 

525  B.  C. 

Egypt  was  originally  divided  into  a  num- 
ber of  no7nes  or  petty  states,  independent  of 
each  other,  and  each  having  for  its  nucleus 
a  temple  and  an  established  priesthood. 
One  historian  mentions  fifty-three  nomes. 
another  thirty-six.  The  gradual  absorptiop 
of  the  weaker  nomes  by  the  more  powerful 
finally  resulted  in  the  establishment  of  this 
first  consolidated  monarchy  of  Africa. 

The  first  mortal  king  of  Misraim,  the 
"double  laud,"  was  MenES,  who,  according 


POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


45 


to  Manetho,  founded  the  First  l-lgyptian 
Djnasty  at  This  (afterwards  Abydos),  in 
Upper  Egypt.  This  was  the  beginning  of 
the  Oi,D  Empire,  which  lasted  from  the  ear- 
liest times  to  the  conquest  of  all  Ivgypt  by 
the  Hyksos,  about  1900  B.  C.  Menes,  the 
first  Egyptian  king,  conquered  and  improved 
Lower  Egypt,  and  on  a  marshj'  tradl  which 
he  had  drained  and  protecfled  by  dykes 
against  the  annual  overflow  of  the  Nile,  he 
founded  the  great  city  of  Memphis,  which, 
for  many  centuries,  remained  the  capital  of 
the  flourishing  kingdom  which  he  had  es- 
tablished. At  Memphis  Menes  built  the 
temple  of  Phthah,  and  there  were  won  the 


— who  was  skilled  in  medicine  and  wrote 
works  on  anatomy,  of  which  portions  still 
exist,  and  who  built  the  citadel  and  palace 
of  Memphis.  Kenkenes,  the  third  king, 
was  succeeded  by  Uenephes,  who  built  the 
Pyramid  of  Kokome,  believed  to  be  the 
oldest  of  all  those  wonderful  stru(5lures,  and 
who  bore  the  name  of  the  Sacred  Calf  of 
Heliopolis.  Altogether  the  First  Dynasty 
comprised  eight  kings. 

The  Third  Dynasty  reigned  at  Memphis 
and  embraced  nine  kings.  The  first  of  these 
was  Necherophes,  who  is  said  to  have  con- 
quered Libya,  the  superstitious  Libj-ans 
having  been  frightened  into  submission  by 


THIC    GREAT   PYRAMID. 


first  recorded  triumphs  of  this  ver\-  oldest 
of  ancient  civilized  nations.  On  the  north 
and  west  sides  of  his  capital,  Menes  caused 
artificial  lakes  to  be  construcfted  for  the  de- 
fense of  the  city,  and  on  the  south  side  a 
large  dyke  protected  it  against  the  annual 
overflow  of  the  Nile.  The  pul)lic  treasures 
were  established  in  the  cit\-,  the  laws  were 
revised  and  the  civil  administration  im- 
proved. After  a  reign  of  sixty-two  years, 
Menes  is  said  to  have  perished  in  a  struggle 
with  a  hippopotamus,  and  was  deified  by 
bis  admiring  countr\-men. 

Menes  was  succeeded  b\-  his  .son  Atet.v 
—called  Athothis,  or  Thoth,  by  the  Greeks 


an  eclip.se  of  the  moon  as  thej-  were  prepar- 
ing for  battle.  Tosorthrus,  the  second 
king  of  this  dynasty,  encouraged  writing, 
medicine  and  architedlure,  and  introduced 
or  improved  the  art  of  building  with  hewn 
stone,  previous  structures  having  been  made 
of  rough  stone  or  brick.  He  was  known  to 
the  Greeks  as  the  "Peaceful  Sesostris,"  the 
later  two  mouarchs  bearing  that  name  being 
great  warriors  and  conquerors. 

His  son  and  succes.sor,  Sasvchis,  or 
Mares-sesorcheres,  was  a  renowned  law- 
giver, who  is  said  to  have  organized  the 
worship  of  the  gods,  and  to  have  invented 
the  sciences   of  geometry    and    astronomy. 


46 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


He  is  likewise  said  to  have  made  the  remark- 
able law  that  a  debtor  might  give  his  father's 
mummy  as  security  for  a  debt.  If  the  debt 
was  not  discharged,  neither  the  debtor  nor 
his  father  could  ever  rest  in  the  familj'  sep- 
ulcher,  and  this  was  regarded  as  the  most 
disgraceful  fate  that  could  befall  a  mortal. 

The  monumental  and  more  certain  historj* 
of  Egypt  commences  with  the  Second, 
Fourth  and  Fifth  Dynasties,  which  reigned 
contemporaneously ;  the  Second  at  This,  in 
Upper  Egypt ;  the  Fourth  at  Memphis,  in 
Middle  Egypt ;  and  the  Fifth  in  the  Isle  of 
Elephantine,  in  Upper  Egypt.  Of  these  the 
Fourth  Dynasty,  established  at  Memphis 
about  2450  B.  C,  was  the  most  powerful  and 
exerci.sed  a  certain  degree  of  supremacy  over 
the  other  two.  This  Memphite  dynasty 
consisted  of  eight  kings,  and  its  greatness  is 
fully  attested  by  the  gigantic  strudlures  of 
stone  which  it  left  in  Middle  Egypt  between 
the  Eib}'an  Mountains  and  the  Nile ;  so  that 
it  was  the  Fourth  Dj-nasty  that  immortalized 
itself  as  that  of  the  Pyramid-builders,  and 
this  period  is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  in  the 
history  of  ancient  Eg^'pt. 

The  great  increase  in  the  population  had 
placed  at  the  king's  disposal  a  large  amount 
of  unemployed  labor,  and  the  natural  pro- 
ductiveness of  the  soil  had  given  all  ranks 
far  more  leisure  than  was  enjoyed  by  any 
other  people  of  antiquity.  The  long  dura- 
Uon  of  the  yearl)'  overflow  of  the  Nile  cau.sed 
a  perceptible  suspension  in  the  various  in- 
dustrial channels,  and  allowed  the  sovereigns 
larger  opportunities  to  employ  the  labor  of 
the  people  in  works  which  might  carry  their 
fame  to  countless  future  ages.  Such  were 
the  circumstances  that  led  to  the  building 
of  the  great  Pyramids — the  most  gigantic 
strucflures  ever  erecfted  bj-  human  hands, 
and  which  the  kings  designed  for  their  tombs. 

These  Pyramids  are  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
site  of  the  ancient  Memphis,  about  ten  miles 
west  of  the  Nile,  on  a  barren  elevation,  in 
the  sides  of  which  were  chambers  hewn  out 
of  the  solid  rock,  in  which  the  bodies  of  the 
ordinary  dead  were  interred.  The  kinglj- 
sarcophagus  was  assigned  a  more  pretentious 
sepulcher  under  more  imposing  monuments 


of  stone.  Gradually  the  heap  of  roj-al  tombs 
assumed  the  form  of  the  Pj-ramids,  the  struc- 
ture becoming,  by  degrees,  more  regular  in- 
ternally and  externally,  so  that  the  finished 
pile  has  been  the  wonder  of  succeeding  ages. 
Along  the  elevation  west  of  Memphis  about 
seventy  of  these  stupendous  strudlures  were 
eredled.  Of  these,  three  were  specially  cel- 
ebrated becau.se  of  their  size  and  grandeur. 
These  are  the  Pyramids  of  Ghizeli,  near 
which  city  they^  are  located.  They  were 
built  in  the  twenty-fifth  centurj-  before 
Christ.  These  three  are  more  conspicuous 
than  the  remaining  se^-en  of  the  same  group 
in  that  vicinity.  The  oldest  and  largest  of 
the  three  great  Pyramids  of  Ghizeh  is  that 
of  Khufu — the  Cheops  of  Herodotus — who 
was  the  successor  of  Seneferu  or  Boris,  the 
first  king  of  the  Fourth  Dynasty,  and  the 
builder  of  the  northern  Pyramid  of  Abousir. 
The  Pyramid  of  Cheops  was  originally 
four  hundred  and  eighty  feet  high,  but  as 
the  apex  has  been  broken  off  it  is  now  but 
four  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high.  The  base 
covers  about  thirteen  acres,  and  each  side  of 
the  base  is  seven  lunidred  and  sixteen  feet 
long,  and  the  inclination  is  five  lunidred  and 
seventj^-four  feet.  The  vast  strudture  is  loca- 
ted exacflly  on  the  thirtieth  parallel  of  north 
latitude,  and  its  four  sides  face  the  cardinal 
points  of  the  compass.  On  the  north  side, 
exactly-  in  the  middle,  a  rectangular  opening 
is  cut,  being  the  entrance  of  a  descending 
passage  three  feet  wide  and  four  feet  high. 
The  passage  leads  downward  to  a  chamber 
cut  in  the  solid  rock  of  the  foundation,  over 
a  hundred  feet  inider  the  ground-level  of. 
the  base.  The  chamber  is  precisely  under 
the  apex  of  the  pyramid,  at  a  distance  of  six 
hundred  feet.  At  points  in  the  main  pas- 
sage to  this  chamber  di\-erging  passages  lead 
to  two  other  chambers,  which  also  lie  di- 
rectly under  the  apex  of  the  Pyramid  and 
above  the  first  chamber.  In  these  chambers 
were  placed  the  stone  coffins  containing  the 
nuimmies  of  these  ancient  monarchs.  Upon 
the  walls  were  sculptures  recounting  the 
departed  king's  deeds.  The  door  of  the 
passage  was  sealed  with  a  stone,  and  the 
name  of  the  dead  sovereign  was  added  to 


BUILDING   OF   THE   TYRAMIDS. 


O 

> 
5^ 


t-H 


roi.irrcAi.  history. 


47 


the  list  of  deities  in  the  temple.  Herodotus 
says  that  the  building  of  the  "Great  Pyra- 
mid" occupied  thirt}-  years,  that  one  hun- 
dred thousand  men  were  forced  to  work  upon 
it  at  a  time,  and  that  a  new  army  of  laborers 
was  employed  everj'  three  months. 

The  second  of  the  three  great  Pyramids 
was  built  by  Khufu's  celebrated  succes.sor, 
Shafra.  and  was  originally  four  hundred 
and  fifty-seven  feet  high,  and  resembles  the 
Pyramid  of  Cheops  in  general  proportion 
and  internal  stnidlure.  The  third  Pyramid 
of  Ghizeh  was  eredled  by  Menkaura,  tlte 
successor  of  Shafra,  and  is  only  two  hun- 
dred feet  high  and  thirty-three  feet  at  the 
base,  and  the  inclination  is  two  hundred  and 
sixty-two  feet.  Some  of  the  outside  por- 
tions of  this  Pyramid  consist  of  polished 
slabs  of  granite.  It  has  a  double  chamber 
within,  one  behind  the  other.  In  the  farther 
chamber  was  recently  found  the  sarcophagus 
containing  the  mummy  of  Menkaura  him- 
self, by  General  Howard  \'3'.se;  and  the  hie- 
roglyphic in.scription  on  the  case  containing, 
with  the  monarch's  name,  the  myth  of  the 
god  Osiris,  has  been  deciphered  and  transla- 
ted into  English.  It  is  only  in  recent  times 
that  other  royal  mummies  have  been  found. 

The  Pyramids  are  built  of  successive  lay- 
ers of  stone  from  two  to  six  feet  thick,  in 
proportion  to  the  size  of  the  structure.  The 
layers  decrease  in  size  from  the  ground  up- 
wards, so  that  the  monument  appears  on 
each  side  in  the  form  of  a  .series  of  stone 
steps  receding  to  the  top.  Diodorus  saj-s 
he  was  informed  by  the  Egyptian  priests 
that  the  gigantic  masses  of  stone  which 
were  used  in  building  the  Pyramids  were 
brought  from  Arabia,  and  were  put  into 
place  by  building  under  them  vast  mounds 
of  earth,  from  which  the  blocks  of  stone 
could  be  moved  into  their  respective  places. 
This  statement  .seems  to  be  substantiated 
by  the  fact  that  no  stone  of  the  kind  used 
in  the  constru(5lion  of  these  vast  monuments 
can  be  found  within  many  miles  from  the 
place  where  the  Pyramids  were  erected. 

Khufu  and  his  successor,  Shafra,  oppress- 
ed the  people  and  despised  the  gods,  crush- 
ing the  former  bj-  the  severe  toils  required 


by  the.se  great  works,  and  closing  the  tem- 
ples of  the  latter  and  putting  an  end  to 
their  worship;  but  Menkaura,  who  was  the 
son  of  Khufu,  and  who,  as  well  as  his  father, 
reigned  sixty-three  years,  differed  from  him 
in  being  a  good  and  humane  sovereign. 
Menkaura  reopetied  the  temples  which  his 
father  had  closed,  restored  the  religious  rites 
of  sacrifice  and  praise,  and  put  an  end  to  op- 
pressive labors.  He  was,  in  consequence, 
highly  reverenced  bj-  the  people,  and  his 
name  was  celebrated  in  many  hynnis  and 
ballads.  After  the  reigns  of  four  more  kings, 
known  to  us  only  by  names  and  dates,  the 
Fourth  Dynastj-,  whose  eight  reigns  aggre- 
gated about  two  hundred  and  twenty  years, 
ended  about  2220  B.  C. 

The  Second  Dynasty,  ruling  Middle  Egj'pt 
from  This,  or  Abydos,  and  the  Fifth,  ruling 
Upper  Egr^'pt  from  the  Isle  of  Elephantine, 
were  probably  related  by  blood  to  the  pow- 
erful sovereigns  ruling  Lower  Egypt  from 
Memphis,  as  the  tombs  of  all  three  of  these 
royal  races  are  found  in  the  \-icinity  of  Mem- 
phis. The  Arabian  copper  mines  of  the 
Peninsula  of  Sinai  were  worked  b)-  Egyptian 
colonies  established  there  by  the  P3Tamid- 
kings,  and  at  this  period  Egyptian  arts  and 
archite<5lure  had  attained  their  highest  de- 
gree of  perfedtion.  Painting,  sculpture  and 
writing,  as  well  as  modes  of  living  and  gen- 
eral civilization,  were  about  the  same  as 
fifteen  centuries  later.  The  reed  pen  and 
the  inkstand  are  among  the  hieroglyphics 
emploj-ed,  and  the  scribe  appears,  pen  in 
hand,  in  the  paintings  on  the  tombs,  making 
notes  on  linen  or  pap},-rus.  In  the  tombs  of 
Beni-Hassan,  belonging  to  this  period,  five 
different  kinds  of  plows  are  shown,  and  ag- 
ricultural life  is  fully  illustrated.  Thus  we 
ha\-e  figures  of  sheep  and  goats  treading  seed 
into  the  ground ;  of  wheat  bound  into 
sheaves,  threshed,  measured,  and  carried  in 
sacks  to  the  granary;  of  bundles  of  flax  on 
the  backs  of  asses ;  of  figs  gathered ;  of 
grapes  thrown  into  the  press;  of  wine  car- 
ried into  the  cellar;  of  the  overseer  and 
laborers  in  field  and  garden  ;  and  of  the  bas- 
tinado applied  to  the  backs  of  laggards. 
W'e  also  have  scenes  of  flocks  and  herds,  of 


48 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y.  —EG  )  V  T. 


bullocks,  calves,  asses,  sheep,  goats;  and 
also  domestic  fowl,  such  as  geese  and  ducks. 
The  making  of  butter  and  cheese  is  likewise 
shown.  Other  works  of  sculpture  show  us 
the  spinners  and  weavers  at  their  looms,  the 
potter  working  the  clay  or  burning  his  ware 
in  the  furnace,  the  smith  making  javelins 
and  lances,  the  painter  at  work  with  his 
colors,  the  mason  with  his  trowel,  the  shoe- 
maker at  his  bench,  the  gla.ss-blower  ph'ing 
his  art.  The  various  grades  of  domestic  life 
are  illustrated,  and  we  see  servants  at  work. 


The  Fourth  Dynasty  at  Memphis  was 
succeeded  by  the  Sixth  Dynasty  about  2220 
B.  C.  The  Second  Dynasty  continued  to^ 
reign  at  This  or  Abydos,  and  the  Fifth  in 
the  Isle  of  Elephantine,  while  the  Ninth 
arose  at  Heracleopolis  and  the  Eleventh  at 
Thebes ;  so  that  Egypt  was  now  divided 
into  five  separate  kingdoms,  the  Theban 
gradually  becoming  the  most  powerful,  as 
the  Memphite  was  losing  its  preeminence. 
Thus  weakened  by  division  and  exhausted 
by  the  great  architedtural  works  which  had 


OBELISK   OF   USURTASEN    I.    .^T   HELIOPOLIS. 


the  kitchen  implements  used,  also  domestic 
apes,  dogs,  cats,  etc.  In  militarj'  life  we 
have  exhibited  soldiers  pradlicing  in  arms, 
fighting  battles,  battering  walls  and  storm- 
ing towns.  Various  sports  and  amusements 
are  likewise  depidled,  and  we  have  here  ex- 
hibited wrestlers,  jugglers,  musicians,  male 
and  female  dancers,  fishing  parties  with 
hooks  and  .spears  and  nets.  Dwarfs  and  de- 
fomiities  can  also  be  seen,  and  ever>-  con- 
dition of  human  life  is  found  represented 
upon  imperishable  tablets  of  stone. 


withdrawn  the  people  from  the  pratlice  of 
anns,  the  countrj'  easih-  fell  a  prey  to  the 
barbarous  nomad  hordes  from  the  neighbor- 
ing regions  of  Sj'ria  and  Arabia.  These 
entered  Lower  Egypt  from  the  north-east  by 
way  of  the  Isthmus  of  Suez  about  2080  B.  C, 
and  soon  became  masters  of  the  countr>'  from 
Memphis  to  the  sea.  They  were  called  the 
Hyksos,  or  Shepherd  Kings.  They  carried 
on  their  conquests  in  the  most  cruel  man- 
ner, burning  the  cities,  razing  the  temples 
to  the  ground,  slaying  the  inhabitants  and 


POLITIC.  If.     ins  TOR  ) '. 


49 


reducing  the  women  and  children  lo  slavery. 

The  Hyksos  founded  the  Fifteenth  Dy- 
nasty at  Memphis  and  the  Sixteenth  at  Ava- 
ris,  in  the  Delta,  near  the  site  of  the  later 
city  of  Pelusiuni.  Native  dynasties  con- 
tinued to  reign  in  Middle  and  Upper  Egypt, 
the  Ninth  at  Heracleopolis,  the  Fifth  in  the 
Isle  of  Elephantine,  while  the  Twelfth  had 
succeeded  the  Eleventh  at  Thebes,  and  the 
Fourteenth  arose  at  Xois,  in  the  Delta,  in 
the  ver\-  heart  of  the  conquests  of  the  Shep- 
herd Kings,  and  maintained  its  indepen- 
dence during  the  whole  period  of  the 
dominion  of  the  Hyksos. 

Under  the  vigorous  rule  of  the  Twelfth 
Dj-nasty,  Thebes  rapidly  grew  into  a  power- 
ful and  prosperous  kingdom  and  extended 
its  supremacy  over  the  kingdoms  of  Ele- 
phantine find  Heracleopolis,  conquered  the 
peninsula  of  Sinai  and  carried  its  arms  tri- 
umphantly into  Arabia  and  Ethiopia.  Us- 
URT.\SEN  I.  reigned  over  all  Upper  Egypt, 
and  under  Usurtasen  II.  and  Usurtasen 
III.  Thebes  attained  its  highest  prosperity. 
Usurtasen  III.  enriched  the  country  by 
numerous  canals ;  and  monuments  of  his 
power  at  Senneh,  near  the  southern  border  of 
the  kingdom,  still  excite  the  wonder  of  the 
traveler.  His  successor,  Ammenemes  III. — 
the  Maris  or  Loemaris  of  Manetho,  and  the 
Moeris  of  Herodotus — built  the  Eab^-rinth 
in  the  Faioom,  the  most  superb  and  gigantic 
edifice  in  Egypt,  which  contained  three 
thousand  rooms,  one  half  of  which  number 
were  underground,  and  were  the  receptacle 
of  the  mummies  of  kings  and  of  the  sacred 
crocodiles,  and  are  known  as  the  Catacombs. 
The  walls  of  the  fifteen  hundred  apart- 
ments above  ground  were  of  solid  stone  and 
entirely^  covered  with  sculpture.  Herodo- 
tus, who  visited  this  magnificent  strucflure, 
declared  that  it  surpassed  all  other  human 
works.  He  says:  "The  roof  throughout 
was  of  stone  like  the  wall,  and  the  walls 
were  car\-ed  all  over  with  figures.  Every 
court  was  surrounded  with  a  colonnade, 
which  was  built  of  white  stones  exquisitely- 
fitted  together. ' ' 

The  same  king  constru<5led  the  Lake 
Mceris,  a  natural  resen'oir  near  a  bend  of  the 


Nile,  which  he  so  improved  by  means  of  a 
canal  and  dykes  as  to  retain,  for  purposes  of 
irrigation,  a  large  part  of  the  waters  from  the 
annual  inundation,  and  thus  increased  the 
fertility  of  the  surrounding  country. 

Architecflure  and  the  arts  flourished  in 
Upper  Egypt,  and  numerous  canals  were 
constructed  to  increase  the  fruitfulness  of 
the  soil  by  irrigation,  while  Lower  Egypt 
continued  to  groan  under  the  oppressive  rule 
of  the  Hyksos,  or  Shepherd  Kings.  The 
Thirteenth  Dynasty,  which  succeeded  the 
Twelfth  at  Thebes,  was  compelled  to  give 
way  before  the  Shepherd  Kings  and  to  seek 
refuge  in  Ethiopia,  thus  leaving  Upper 
Egypt  also  to  the  mercy  of  the  barbarous 
Hyk.sos,  who  now  ruled  all  Egypt,  except 
Xois,  in  the  Delta  (B.  C.  1900).  The  bar- 
barous conquerors  burned  cities,  destroyed 
temples,  and  massacred  or  enslaved  the  in- 
habitants. During  the  Middle  Empire— 
from  1900  B.  C.  to  1600  B.  C. — this  barbarous 
race  held  the  native  Egyptians  insubjecftion; 
the  Thirteenth  Dynasty  at  Thebes,  the  Sev- 
enth and  Eighth  at  Memphis,  and  the  Tenth 
at  Heracleopolis,  holding  their  crowns  as 
tributaries  of  the  Shepherd  Kings  of  the 
Seventeenth  Dynasty. 

This  was  the  darkest  period  of  Egyptian 
history.  The  Hyksos  destroyed  the  monu- 
ments of  their  predecessors  and  left  none  of 
their  own,  so  that  there  is  a  gap  of  three 
centuries  between  the  Old  and  the  New  Em- 
pire, during  which  the  Holy  City  of  Thebes 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  barbarians;  the  an- 
nals ceased,  and  the  names  of  kings,  either 
native  Egjptian  or  Hyksos,  are  for  the  most 
part  unknown  to  us.  Late  writers  sup- 
pose the  Hyksos  to  have  been  the  same  as 
the  Hittites  of  Syria.  After  their  ex- 
pulsion from  Egy'pt  some  of  them  found 
refuge  in  Crete,  and  reappeared  in  Palestine 
about  the  same  time  that  the  Israelites  en- 
tered that  country'  from  the  west.  It  is 
believed  by  some  that  Joseph  and  the  family 
of  Jacob  settled  in  Lower  Egypt  during  the 
reign  of  one  of  the  Shepherd  Kings  ;  others, 
however,  place  that  event  a  little  later. 

After  their  long  Innuiliation  under  the 
oppressive  rule  of  the  Shepherd  Kings,  the 


50 


ANCIEiYT   HISTORY.— EC,  ] TT. 


Egyptian  people  rallied  for  a  great  national 
uprising  under  the  Theban  king  Amosis, 
Ames,  or  Aahmes ;  and  the  H\-ksos  were 
driven  from  Egypt,  after  a  desperate  contest, 
B.  C.  1600.  Then  began  the  New  Empire 
— the  most  brilliant  period  of  Egyptian  his- 
tor\- — which  lasted  a  little  more  than  a 
thousand  j-ears  (B.  C.  160x^-525).  Amosis 
united  all  Egypt  into  one  kingdom,  with 
Thebes  for  its  capital,  and  founded  the 
Eighteenth  Dynasty.  He  married  Nefru- 
ari,  the  daughter  of  the  King  of  Ethiopia — 
' '  the  good  and  glorious  woman ' ' — \\ho  held 
the  highest  honor  ever  accorded  a  queen. 


tial  spirit  wrought  up  !)>'  the  struggle  against 
the  H3'ksos  displa3ed  itself  in  warlike  en- 
terprises against  neighboring  nations,  which 
were  again  obliged  to  acknowledge  the  su- 
premacy of  Egypt,  whose  arms  were  carried 
in  triumph  into  Ethiopia,  Arabia  and  Syria, 
and  even  beyond  the  Euphrates. 

Amosis,  the  first  king  of  the  Eighteenth 
Dynasty,  reigned  twenty-six  years.  The 
next  king,  Amcnoph  I.,  married  the  widow 
of  Amosis,  and  reigned  twenty-one  years. 
Thothmes  I.,  the  third  king  of  the  Eight- 
eenth Dynasty,  won  great  victories  over  the 
Ethiopians  and  conquered  the  Canaanites  of 


.AN    KGVPTI.\X    KING    DKSTROVING    HIS    ENlvMIKS. 


For  the  next  eight  centuries  Egypt  re- 
mained a  single  united  kingdom;  and  during 
the  Ei,ghteenth,  Nineteenth  and  Twentieth 
Dynasties  Egyptian  .sculpture  and  architedl- 
ure  reached  their  highest  degree  of  perfec- 
tion. During  this  period  the  hundred-gated 
Thebes  attained  the  height  of  its  .splendor. 
Its  great  temple-palaces  were  then  built ; 
and  numerous  obelisks,  "fingers  of  the 
sun,"  pointed  heavenward.  The  horse  and 
the  war-chariot  were  now  introduced  into 
Egypt,  and  the  military  caste  for  a  time  held 
a  higher  rank  than  the  priestly.     The  mar- 


Palestine,  and  even  carried  his  arms  east- 
ward against  the  Assyrians  in  Mesopota- 
mia.    He  reigned  twenty -one  years. 

Royal  women  were  held  in  higher  esteem 
in  Egypt  than  in  any  other  ancient  mon- 
arch}-.  Thothmes  I.  was  succeeded  by  his 
daughter,  Ajienset,  Mesphra,  or  Hatasu, 
who  acted  as  regent  for  her  younger  brother, 
Thothmes  II.,  who  died  a  minor.  Amen- 
set  held  the  regency  for  her  next  brother, 
Thothmes  III.  Her  reign  of  twent3'-two 
years  was  brilliant  and  successful.  She 
completed    the    temple   of  Aniun,   and   her 


poi.iTic.ii    nrsroRY 


51 


fame  is  commemorated  by  the  two  gigantic 
obelisks  at  Karnak. 

After  the  death  of  Ameiiset,  her  brother, 
Thothmes  III.,  reigned  alone.  Envious 
of  his  sister's  fame,  he  caused  her  name  and 
image  to  be  effaced  from  all  the  sculptures 
in  which  they  had  appeared  together. 
Thothmes  III.  reigned  alone  forty-.seven 
years  (B.  C.  15 10-1463).  He  carried  on 
wars  in  Ethiopia,  Arabia,  Syria  and  Meso- 
potamia, and  defeated  the  Syrians  in  a 
great  battle  at  Megiddo,  in  Canaan,  twice 
took  Kadish,  the  chief  citj-  of  the  Kheta 
tribes,  and  led  his  armies  as  far  as  Nineveh, 
from  which  city,  according  to  inscriptions  on 
his  monuments,  he  took  tribute.  Thothmes 
III.  is  no  more  distinguished  for  his  militar}- 
exploits  than  for  the  magnificent  temples 
and  palaces  which  he  erecfted  at  Karnak, 
Thebes,  Memphis,  Heliopolis,  Coptos,  and 
in  ever}'  other  city  of  Egypt  and  Ethiopia. 


^S!f^ 


CLEOPATRA'S   NEEDLE. 
.-Vs  it  stood  in  Alexandria  (uow  iu  New  York). 

The  records  of  his  twelve  successive  cam- 
paigns are  inscribed  in  sculpture  upon  the 
walls  of  his  palaces  at  Thebes.  The  two 
obelisks  near  Alexandria,  which  .some  Ro- 
man wit  called  Cleopatra's  Needles,  one  of 
which  is  now  in  London  and  the  other  iu 
New  York,  bear  the  name  of  this  king. 

Thothmes  III.  was  succeeded  by  his  son, 
Amuxoph  II.,  in  the  beginning  of   whose 


reign  the  Ivgyptians  took  Nineveh.  He  is 
said  to  have  brought  to  Egypt  the  bodies  of 
seven  kings  whom  he  had  slain  in  battle, 
and  whose  heads  were  placed  as  trophies 
upon  the  walls  of  Thebes.  After  a  short 
reign  he  was  succeeded  bj'  his  son,  Thoth- 
MKS  I\'.,  who  is  believed  by  .some  writers  to 
have  cau.sed  the  can-ing  of  the  great  Sphinx 
near  the  Pyramids.  Amunoph  III.,  the 
son  and  successor  of  Thothmes  I\'.,  who  as- 
cended the  Egj'ptian  throne  B.  C.  1448, 
reigned  thirty-six  years,  and  was  one  of  the 
greatest  monarchs  of  the  Eighteenth  D\- 
nasty.  He  condu(5led  succe.ssful  wars  against 
the  Libyans  and  Ethiopians,  and  adorned 
his  kingdom  with  many  magnificent  archi- 
tecftural  works,  and  improved  its  agriculture 
by  the  construction  of  tanks  or  resen-oirs 
to  regulate  irrigation.  New  temples  were 
built  at  Thebes,  where  also  two  great  Co- 
lossi, one  of  which  is  known  as  the  Vocal 
Mcmnon,  also  belong  to  this  reign  ;  but  the 
Amenopheum,  of  which  they  were  orna- 
ments, is  now  in  ruins.  The  two  Colossi 
were  huge  granite  statues  of  Amunoph  III., 
with  his  mother  and  queen  in  relief  on  the 
die,  in  front  of  the  sancftuarj-  of  Osiris,  and 
ma)'  still  be  .seen  among  the  surrounding 
ruins.  The  \''ocal  Memnon,  according  to  a 
Greek  tradition  founded  on  the  story  of  trav- 
elers who  visited  the  spot,  was  said  to  utter 
a  musical  sound  at  sunrise  like  the  twanging 
of  harp-strings.  The  pedestal  is  fifty-nine 
feet  high  from  base  to  crown.  The  palaces 
of  Luxor  and  Karnak,  now  among  the  most 
conspicuous  of  the  ruins  of  those  famous 
places,  were  connecfled  by  an  avenue  of  a 
thousand  sphinxes,  while  at  Thebes  a  col- 
onnade in  the  same  style  was  lined  with 
colo.ssal  sitting  statues  of  the  cat-headed 
goddess  Pa.sht,  or  Bubastis.  In  the  monu- 
mental inscriptions  of  his  times,  Amunoph 
III.  is  styled  "Pacificator  of  Egy^Jt  and 
Tanner  of  the  Libyan  Shepherds. ' ' 

The  reign  of  Amunoph  III.  was  marked 
by  great  internal  troubles,  iu  consequence 
of  his  unsuccessful  efforts  to  change  the 
national  religion.  His  .son,  HoRUS,  was  his 
legitimate  successor,  but  his  claims  were 
disputed  by  many  pretenders,  most  of  whom 


52 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  V.—EG  Yl'T. 


were  princes  or  princesses  of  the  blood  ro}-al, 
and  for  thirty  years  the  kingdom  was  in  an 
unsettled  and  distracted  condition.  Horus 
ultimately  triumphed  over  and  outlived  all 
his  rivals,  and  died  after  reigning  seven 
j'ears  in  peace.  He  conducfted  successful 
wars  in  Africa  and  enlarged  the  palaces  at 
Karnak  and  Luxor.  With  the  next  king, 
Resitot,  or  Rathotis,  the  Eighteenth  Dy- 
nasty came  to  an  end,  B.  C.  1400. 

The  Nineteenth  Dynasty  was  founded  B. 
C.  1400  by  Raimkses  I.,  who  was  descended 


tlie  Great,  whom  the  Greek  writers  named 
Sesostris,  and  who,  during  his  father's  life- 
time, subdued  both  L,ibya  and  Arabia. 
Upon  ascending  the  throne  he  entered  upon 
a  career  of  conquest  with  the  ultimate  de- 
sign of  universal  dominion.  Herodotus, 
Diodorus,  and  Manetho  relate,  with  .some 
variation  in  their  narrative,  his  sulyugation 
of  the  neighboring  nations.  After  dividing 
his  kingdom  into  thirty-six  nomes  and  as- 
signing his  brother  Armais  to  the  regency 
in  his  absence,  Rameses  set  out  with  an  armv 


THi:    TWIN    Ccil.USSl    Ul'    .V.MUNUl'U    lU.    Xlv.VK    XUEBliS. 


from  the  first  two  kings  of  the  Eighteenth 
Dynasty.  He  reigned  less  than  two  years, 
and  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Seti,  or 
Sethos  I.,  who  inherited  all  the  national 
hatred  toward  the  Syrian  invaders  of  his 
country,  reconquered  Syria,  which  had  re- 
volted forty  years  before,  and  extended  his 
conquests  as  far  as  the  borders  of  Cilicia 
and  the  Euphrates.  Seti  built  the  great 
Hall  of  Columns  at  Karnak,  in  which  the 
whole  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame,  in  Paris, 
could  stand  without  touching  walls  or  ceil- 
ing ;  and  his  tomb  is  the  most  magnificent 
of  all  the  royal  .sepulchers  of  ancient  Egypt. 
The  most  renowned  king  of  Egypt  was 
Rameses  II.,  (1388-1322  B.  C.j,  surnamed 


of  six  hundred  thousand  foot-soldiers,  twen- 
ty-four thousand  horse,  and  twenty-seven 
thousand  war-chariots,  to  conquer  the  world. 
He  first  reduced  Ethiopia  under  subjec- 
tion and  imposed  upon  that  country  a  heavy 
tribute  of  ebony,  ivory  and  gold.  He 
founded  the  Egyptian  navy  by  building  a 
fleet  of  four  hundred  war  vessels  on  the  Red 
Sea,  and  reduced  under  his  dominion  the 
islands  and  .shores  as  far  as  India.  After 
carrying  his  vidlorious  anns  eastward  be- 
yond the  Ganges,  he  rapidly  subdued  Asi- 
atic and  European  Scythia,  and  was  only 
checked  in  his  conquering  career  in  Thrace 
l)y  the  severity  of  the  climate  and  the  scar- 
city of  food.     Wherever   he  conquered  he 


w 

cq 


D 

W 

•72 

w 
W 

H 


}'oi.rric.\i.   HisroRY 


53 


erected  momiments  with  the  inscription : 
"Sesostris,  king  of  kings  and  lord  of  lords, 
lias  conquered  this  territory  by  the  power  of 
his  arms."  After  nine  years  of  conquest, 
this  triumphant  warrior-king  returned  to  his 
kingdom  with  a  vast  booty  and  captives 
from  the  subjugated  nations. 


1I.\1.I.   OK   COLUMNS    I.N   THE   GRE.^T  TEMPLE   .\T   K.\RNAK. 

Modern  investigation  has  shown  the  mili- 
tary exploits  of  Ranieses  the  Great,  as  nar- 
rated by  Herodotus  and  Diodorus,  to  ha\'e 
been  highly  exaggerated.     Bj'  deciphering 

the  inscriptions  in  the  Raniescum  at  Kar- 


nak.  in  the  temple  ere<5led  by  Rameses  in 
Kthiopia,  in  the  ruins  of  Tanis,  and  on  the 
Rocks  of  Beyreut,  it  has  been  .shown  that 
the  principal  scenes  in  his  triumphant  career 
were  enacted  in  the  neighboring  countries 
of  Ethiopia,  Arabia  and  Syria. 

The  noted  works  of  Rameses  the  Great 
were  the  building  of  a  great 
wall  from  Pelusium  to  Heli- 
opolis,  to  protecl  Egypt  on 
the  east  against  the  inroads 
of  the  Syrians  and  Arabs;  the 
cutting  of  a  -sj-stem  of  canals 
from  Memphis  to  the  sea ;  the 
completion  of  the  famous  Hall 
of  Columns  at  Kaniak,  begun 
by  his  father;  and  the  magnifi- 
cent temple  of  Amunoph  HI. 
at  Luxor.  Before  this  temple 
were  placed  two  sitting  co- 
lossi of  Rameses  and  two  red 
granite  obelisks,  both  of  which 
still  remain  with  their  hiero- 
glyphic inscriptions  as  perfedl 
as  when  they  were  cut,  one 
still  standing  on  the  original 
spot,  and  the  other  greeting 
the  eye  of  the  beholder  in  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde,  in  Paris. 
In  ever}-  part  of  Eg>pt  may 
be  found  monuments  com- 
memorating the  achievements 
and  greatness  of  this  celebra- 
ted monarch.  At  Ipsambul, 
in  Nubia,  in  a  valley  with 
walls  of  j-ellow  sandstone,  two 
temples  are  cut  in  the  solid 
rock,  one  dedicated  to  Ra  by 
Rameses  the  Great,  and  the 
other  to  Hathor  by  his  queen. 
Before  the  temple  of  Rameses 
are  four  stupendous  colossi  of 
himself,  over  seventj-  feet  high, 
and  .seated  on  thrones.  The 
shoulders  of  these  colossal 
statues  are  twenty-five  feet  wide,  and  they 
measure  fifteen  feet  from  elbow  to  finger-tip. 
The  image  of  Rameses  stands  conspicuous 
among  those  of  the  long  line  of  deified  sov- 
ereigns of  Ancient  Egypt,  on  the  walls  of  the 


54 


ANCIENT   HIS  TORY.— EG  YPT. 


^eat  temple  of  Abydos,  while  before  the  altar  another  image  represents  Rameses  as  a 
mortal  offering  sacrifice  to  himself  and  his  ancestors. 

Under  the  Nineteenth  Dynast}-,  the  magnificence  and  greatness  of  Thebes,  then  the 
capital,  surpassed  the  former  splendor  of  Memphis.  In  Thebes  the  wonderi'ul  works  of 
Thothmes  IV.,  Amunoph  III.,  Seti,  Rameses  II.,  and  Rameses  III.,  rose  in  majestic  gran- 
deur, on  both  .sides  of  the  Nile,  around  a  circle  of  fifteen  miles. 

Menepta,  who  succeeded  Rameses  the  Great  in  1322  B.  C, 
and  reigned  twenty'  years,  is  now  generally  regarded  as  the 
Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus  of  the  Israelites.     In  1550  B.  C,  the 
familjr  of  Jacob,  the  grandson  of  Abraham,  the  founder  of  the 
Hebrew  race,  had  settled  in  that  part  of  Lower  Egypt  on  the 
east  side  of  the  Delta,  known  as  the  Land  of  Goslien,  while 
Jacob's  favorite  son,  Joseph,  was  prime  minister  to  the  Egyptian 
king,  a  post  to  which  he  is  said  to  have   been  elevated  on  ac- 
count of  his  services  in  saving  the  land  from  famine.     Here 
the  posterity  of  Jacob  or  Israel  multiplied  during  a  period  of 
two  and  a  half  centuries.     For  a  while  the  new  race  of  stran- 
gers were  highly  esteemed  by  the  Egyptian  kings  and  nation, 
jut  during  the  reigns  of  Seti  I.  and  Rameses  the  Great,  the 
Egyptian  authorities  grew  jealous  of  the  rapidly  increasing 
Hebrew  race  and  began  to  exercise  a  systematic  oppression 
toward  them.     The  strangers  were   set    to   work  at  build- 
ing  and   digging.      Their  labor  enlarged  the  treasure 
cities  of  Pithom  and  Rameses.     They  aided  in  the  con^ 
stni<5tion  of  the  great  canal  from  the  Nile, 
Bubastis,  to  the  Red  Sea.     They  toiled  in 
brickyards    and    were    beaten    by    the 
ptian    task-masters   until    they  rose    in 
rebellion.     The  revolt  was  heightened 
the  withdrawal  of  religious   privileges, 
great   leader,    Mo.ses,  who   had   been 
pelled  to  .save  his  life  by  flight  to  the 
d  of  Midian   because   he   had   slain  an 
yptian  whom  he  had  seen  ill-treating  a 
brew,  had  now  returned  to  his  people  and 
sought  to  obtain  King  Menepta's  per- 
mi,s.sion  to  lead   them   in    a 
three  daj's'  march  into  the 
desert  to  sacrifice  to  Jehovah. 
It  was  only  after  Moses  had 
performed  signs  and  wonders 
in    the    king's    hou.se    that 
Menepta  allowed  the  Israel 
ites  to  depart. 

They  followed  the  bank  of 
the  canal,  gathering  their 
-THE  viicAL  MKMNON.  people  aloug  the  route  of  the 
Hebrew  towns,  but  upon  reaching  the  Gulf  of  Suez  were  hemmed  in  by  the  hosts  of  the 
Eg>'ptian  king. 

By  the  receding  of  the  waters  at  that  shallow  point  of  the  sea,  by  means  of  a  "strong 


NE.\R   THEBES- 


por.  rriCAL  ins  n  )A'  ) '. 


55 


east  wind,"  as  told  in  Exodus,  the  fleeing 
Israelites,  numbering  two  millions,  were  en- 
abled to  crass  the  bare,  sandy  bottom  and 
reach  the  opposite  shore  in  safety.  But  the 
hosts  of  Menepta,  while  crossing  the  shallow 
bottom  in  pursuit  of  the  fugitives,  were  sud- 
denly drowned  by  the  returning  waters. 

The  account  of  the  Exodus  of  the  Israel- 
ites, as  related  by  Manetho  and  quoted  by 
Josephus,  differs  from  the  Mosaic  account  in 
detail.  Manetho  states  that  Menepta  de- 
sired to  see  the  gods,  and  was  infonned  by 
a  priest  of  the  same  name  that  his  wish  could 
only  be  gratified  when  he  cleansed  the  land 
of  lepers.     The  Pharaoh  Menepta,  therefore. 


priest  Osarsipli,  of  Heliopolis,  for  their  leader. 
He  gave  Ihcni  laws,  one  of  which  gave  them 
permission  to  kill  and  eat  the  gods,  the  sa- 
cred animals  of  the  I^gyptians.  He  then 
directed  them  to  fortifj-  Avaris,  and  also  sent 
an  emba.ssy  to  Jerusalem  to  infonn  the  ban- 
ished Hyksos  of  the  course  of  events  in 
Egypt,  to  invite  them  to  return,  and  to 
promise  them  the  kej-s  of  Avaris.  The 
Shepherd  Kings  gladly  availed  themselves 
of  the  offer  and  returned  with  an  army  of 
two  hundred  thousand  men  to  reco\-er  the 
kingdom  of  their  ancestors.  When  informed 
of  this  invasion  of  the  Hyksos,  King  Me- 
nepta, influenced  by  superstition  and  fear, 


cast  eight)'  thousand  of  the  lepers  into  the 
stone-quarries  east  of  the  Nile.  When  the 
son  of  Papius  heard  that  .some  priests  and 
men  of  learning  had  thus  perished,  he  feared 
the  displeasure  of  the  gods  for  having  plot- 
ted to  ruin  or  enslave  holy  men.  But  a 
vision  informed  him  that  others  would  come 
to  aid  the  lepers  and  govern  Egypt  thirteen 
years.  After  writing  this  on  a  roll  of  papy- 
rus, he  committed  suicide. 

Menepta,  becoming  alarmed,  liberated  the 
lepers  from  the  quarries.  He  assigned  them 
Avaris,  which  had  remained  in  ruins  since 
the  expul.sion  of  the  Shepherd  Kings.  After 
rebuilding    the    city,  the    lepers   chose    the 


fled  in  terror  into  Ethiopia,  there  to  remain 
until  the  thirteen  j-ears  of  leper  rule  should 
have  pa.ssed.  Thus  Egypt  was  sacrificed  to 
the  unclean,  who  rioted  in  the  sacred  places 
until  King  Menepta  returned  with  an  army 
of  Egyptians  and  Ethiopians  and  expelled 
the  lepers  and  their  allies,  the  Hyksos,  from 
the  kingdom.  The  name  of  the  priest-leader 
of  the  lepers  had,  in  the  meantime,  beer 
changed  to  Moyses,  or  Moses.  The  Egyu- 
tian  historians  always  spoke  of  the  Hebrews 
as  lepers. 

After  the  reigns  of  Seti  II.  andSiPHTHAH, 
the  Twentieth  Dynasty  ascended  the  throne 
of  Egypt  in  1269  B.  C,  in  the  person  of  Set- 


56 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  ) '.  —  EG  )  'PT. 


NEKHT.     The  next  king  was  Rameses  III., 
who,  during  a  reign  of  thirt^'-two  years  and 
in    ten    victorious    campaigns,    restored    to 
Egypt  the  glory  which  she  had  possessed  un- 
der the  elder  kings  of  the  preceding  dynasty, 
subduing   the  Hittites  and  Amorites  of  Ca- 
naan and  the  Ethiopians,  Libyans  and  Ne- 
groes of  Africa.     Naval  battles  were  fought 
during    this   reign,    as    attested   by    hiero- 
glyphic   inscriptions.     Rameses    III.    built 
the   palace  of  Medinet-  Abu  at  Thebes,  of 
which  every  pylon,   every  gate,  and  ever>' 
chamber   gives   some    account  of  his  brif- 
liant  exploits.     Rameses  III.  had  four  sons, 
each  named  Rameses,  who  reigned  in  suc- 
cession.    Rameses    VIIL,  who    succeeded 
them,  conducfted  some  successful  wars.     He 
was  followed  by  seven  other  kings  bearing 
the  same  name,  but  their  reigns  were  short 
and  uneventful.      Eg\'pt,  which  had  reached 
the  pinnacle  of  its  greatness  under  the  Nine- 
teenth Dynasty,  rapidly  declined  during  the 
Twentieth.     The   hieroglyphic  inscriptions 
no  longer   recount   the  grand   military-  ex- 
ploits  of  kings,  and   art   and   architedlure 
decayed.      Egypt's  conquests   in  Asia  and 
Ethiopia  were  gradualh'  lost.    From  its  long 
contacft  with   Asiatic    nations,   Egypt    had 
lost  its  national  feeling,  and  foreign  influ- 
ence was  marked  in  the  civil  administration 
of  the  kingdom.     The  Pharaohs  at  this  time 
became    allied    by    marriage   with    foreign 
courts,  and  foreign  colonies — Assyrian,  Ba- 
bylonian   and    Phcenician — settled    in    the 
countr)-;    and  the    constant  intercommuni- 
cation between  the  Egyptians  and  the  Sem- 
itic nations  of  Asia  is  shown  by  the  presence 
of  Semitic  names  and  the  admission  of  Sem- 
itic words  to  the  Egj'ptian  language,  as  well 
as  by'  the  admission  of  foreign  gods  into  the 
Egyptian  sanc5luaries,   hitherto  inaccessible 
to  any  deity  outside  of  the  Egyptian  pan- 
theon.     The   ovenvhelming   predominance 
of  the  priesthood,  whose  influence  pervaded 
all  ranks,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  was 
a  barrier  to  thought  and  progress  of  every- 
kind.     The  people  were  slavishly  held  to  the 
old    forms    of    religion,    architecfture    lan- 
guished, no  new  buildings  were  erected,  nor 
additions  made  to  the  magnificent  structures 


of  former  ages.  Sculpture  and  painting  de- 
rived no  new  life  from  the  study  of  nature, 
but  confined  themselves  to  slavish  copies  of 
old  models  or  dull  and  meaningless  imita- 
tions. The  priestly  caste  aimed  to  hold  all 
things  at  a  certain  level,  fixed  and  un- 
changeable. Thus,  when  progress  ceased, 
decay  at  once  commenced. ,  The  later  mon- 
archs  of  the  Twentieth  Dynasty  were  but 
instruments  in  the  hands  of  the  priestly 
cla.ss. 

During  this  period  of  general  military  and 
intellettual  decline  the  priestly  order  aug- 
mented its  power  and  influence  to  such  an 
extent  that  it  seized  the  throne,  and  the 
Twenty-first  Dynasty  reigning  at  Tanis,  in 
the  Delta,  was  a  race  of  priest-kings.  They- 
wore  the  sacerdotal  robes  and  called  them- 
selves High  Priests  of  Amun.  Pisham  I., 
one  of  this  priestly-  race,  gave  his  daughter 
in  marriage  to  Solomon.  The  seven  kings 
of  this  dynasty  generally-  had  short  and 
uneventful  reigns  (B.  C.  1091-990). 

Sheshonk  I. — the  Shishak  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  founder  of  the  Twenty-' 
second  Dynasty — married  the  daughter  of 
Pisham  II.,  the  last  king  of  the  previous 
dynasty,  and  also  called  himself  High  Priest 
of  Amun.  He  made  Bubastis,  in  the  Delta, 
his  capital,  and  restored  the  military-  strength 
of  the  kingdom.  It  was  to  Sheshonk  that 
Jeroboam  fled  after  his  unsuccessful  rebellion 
against  King  Solomon;  and  Sheshonk  es- 
poused the  cause  of  Jeroboam  in  his  revolt 
against  Solomon's  son  and  successor,  Reho- 
boam,  and  invading  Judah,  took  Jerusalem, 
plundered  the  treasures  of  the  Temple 
and  the  palace,  and  compelled  Rehoboam  to 
pay  tribute.  One  of  the  inscriptions  at  Kar- 
nak  gives  a  list  of  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
towns  and  distri(5ls  reduced  by  Sheshonk  in 
Syria.  He  made  the  office  of  High  Priest 
of  Amun  hereditary  in  his  family. 

Sheshonk  died  in  972  B.  C,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  his  son  Osorkon  I.,  who  reigned 
fifteen  years  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son 
Pehor.  Osorkon  II.,  the  fourth  king  of  this 
dynasty,  is  believed  by  some  writers  to  have 
been  the  Zerah  of  Scripture,  who  invaded 
Syria  and  was  defeated   by   Asa,  King  of 


Egvptiax     Courtier  —  F^c.yptian      King  —  Fan 

B£ARKR. 


Jewish  Warriors— Jewish  Kings. 


Jewish  HniH-PKiESx— Levites. 


Alexander  The  Great. 


1— 4.-U.  H. 


EGYPT,  JEWISH   KINGDOM,  GREECE. 


POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


57 


Jiidah,  in  the  battle  of  Mareshah  (  2  Chron. 
xiv.  9-14).  The  reinaiiiiii}:;  kings  of  the 
T\vent5--second  Dynasty,  whieh  ended  with 
Takelot  II.  in  847  B.  C,  were  insignificant 
personages:  and  the  process  of  decay  and 
disintegration  rajiidly  went  on  and  was  ag- 
gravated by  tlieeni]iloynient  of  Li1)yan  mer- 
cenaries in  preference  to  native  soldiers. 
Semi-independent  principalities  sprang  up  in 
different  parts  of  the  kingdom,  successfully 
defying  ever\-  effort  of  the  Pharaohs  to  pre- 
ser\-e  the  unity  of  the  nation.  The  utter  de- 
cay of  the  national  spirit  paralyzed  both 
sovereign  and  people. 

The  Twenty-third  Dynasty,  ^B.  C.  847- 
758),  which  ruled  at  Tanis,  comprised  four 
kings,  none  of  them  famous,  and  who.se 
reigns  were  characflerized  by  revolutions  and 
civil  wars.  The  Northern  Ethiopian  king- 
dom, which  had  Napata  for  its  capital,  was 
founded  by  Piankhi,  a  descendant  of  the 
priest-kings  of  the  Twenty-first  Egyptian 
Dyna.st}-.  Piankhi  became  virtual  master 
of  Egypt,  which,  according  to  his  stele 
found  at  Gebel-Berkal,  was  at  this  time  di- 
vided into  seven  kingdoms,  each  ruled  by  a 
native  Egyptian  prince,  who  reigned  under 
the  suzeraintj-  of  Piankhi.  Tafnekht,  who 
ruled  in  the  Western  Delta  and  held  Sais  and 
Memphis,  endeavored  to  cast  off  the  yoke  of 
Piankhi,  and  headed  a  revolt  which  was 
joined  by  the  other  native  Egyptian  princes. 
Piankhi's  army  took  Thebes,  defeated  the 
rebel  fleet,  besieged  and  took  Hermopolis, 
defeated  the  rebel  fleet  a  second  time  at 
Sutensenen  and  gained  another  great  victory^ 
on  land.  Xanirut,  the  Hermopolitan  king, 
besieged  the  Ethiopian  garrison  in  Hermop- 
olis and  recovered  the  cit)-.  Thereupon  Pi- 
ankhi, in  person,  led  an  arm 3-  against  Her- 
mopolis, and  laid  siege  to  the  city,  which  he 
finally  compelled  Xamrut  to  surrender.  Pi- 
ankhi also  forced  Pefaabast,  king  of  Hera- 
cleopolis  Magna,  to  surrender,  and  then  at- 
tacked Memphis,  which  was  defended  \>y  a 
strong  garrison  devoted  to  Tafnekht.  After 
a  desperate  resistance  and  frightful  slaugh- 
ter Memphis  was  taken,  and  its  fall  hastened 
the  restoration  of  Piankhi's  authority  over 
all  Egypt.     The  revolt  ended  with  the  sub- 


mis.sion  of  Osorkon,  king  of  Bubastis,  and 
Tafnekht,  the  rebel  leader,  both  of  whom 
were  generously  pardoned  by  Piankhi,  after 
taking  a  new  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Ethi- 
opian sovereign,  who  allowed  all  the  native 
rebel  kings  to  retain  their  respective  thrones. 
But  in  a  few  years,  Egypt  revolted  under 
the  leadership  of  Bkk-kn-kani-",  called  Boc- 
choris  by  the  Greeks,  a  native  of  Sais,  who 
was  the  only  king  of  the  Twenty-fourth  Dy- 
nasty. Bocchoris,  however,  was  soon  con- 
quered by  Sabaco,  or  Shabak,  the  Ethio- 
pian king  reigning  at  Napata,  and  was 
burned  alive  in  punishment  for  his  rebellion. 
S.\B.\co,  the  Ethiopian,  thus  founded  the 
Twentj'-fifth  Dynasty,  and  is  known  in  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  as  So,  or  Sevah.  He 
entered  into  an  alliance  with  Ho.shea,  King 
of  Israel,  and  the  Syrian  princes  against  Sar- 
gon.  King  of  Assyria,  but  was  defeated  bj' 
the  As.syrian  monarch  in  the  jjreat  battle  of 
Raphia,  near  the  eastern  borders  of  Egj'pt, 
B.  C.  718.  Sabaco  fled  to  Ethiopia,  retain- 
ing possession  of  Upper  Egypt ;  while  the 
sway  of  the  Assyrians  was  established  over 
the  Delta  and  Middle  Egypt,  over  which 
they  placed  tributary  native  princes,  their 
policy  being  to  weaken  Egypt  by  dividing 
it  as  much  as  possible.  Sabaco's  .son  and 
succes.sor,  Shab.\tok,  for  a  short  time  ruled 
all  Egypt,  but  was  deprived  of  the  Ethiopian 
crown  by  Tirhak.\h,  or  Tehrak;  while 
the  petty  native  Egyptian  princes  fonued 
an  alliance  with  Hezekiah.  king  of  Judah, 
against  Sennacherib,  King  of  Assyria,  but 
the  allies  were  defeated  in  the  South  of  Pales- 
tine and  submitted  to  the  sway  of  the  vidlori- 
ous  Assyrians.  Instigated  by  Tirhakah,  the 
Egyptian  princes  and  the  King  of  Judah 
again  rose  in  arms  against  the  Assj-rian 
king.  Again  Sennacherib  took  the  field 
against  the  allies  and  advanced  to  Pelusium, 
in  the  eastern  part  of  Lower  Egypt,  but  his 
army  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-five  thou- 
sand men  was  destroyed  by  a  strange  panic 
which  seized  them  in  the  night,  and  which 
the  Jews  and  Egyptians  considered  a  miracu- 
lous interposition,  B.  C.  698.  Sennacherib 
fled  in  dismay  to  Nineveh  and  abandoned  his 
conquests.      The   Assyrian   defeat   enabled 


58 


A XCIEX T   HIS  TOR ) '.  —  FA;  YPT. 


Tirhakah  to  invade  Egj'pt,  kill  Shahatok 
and  reduce  the  whole  land  under  lithiopian 
dominion.  Tirhakah  was  at  once  involved 
in  a  struggle  with  Ivsarhaddon,  King  of 
Assj-ria,  Sennacherib's  son  and  successor, 
who,  in  672  B.  C,  in\-aded  Kgypt,  captured 
Memphis  and  Thei)es,  drove  Tirhakah  back 
into  Ethiopia,  and  established  the  Assyrian 
sway  once  more  overall  Egypt, whose  twenty 
native  princes  were  reduced  to  a  state  of  vas- 
salage under  the  Assyrian  monarch.  A  few 
years  afterward,  however,  Tirhakah  re- 
turned and  expelled  the  Assyrian  garrisons 
from  Egypt,  which  again  acknowledged  the 
Ethiopian  dominion;  but  his  triumph  was 
of  short  duration,  as  he  was  again  deprived 
of  his  Egyptian  conquest  b\-  Esarhaddon's 
.successor,  A.sshur-bani-pal,  who  won  the 
native  Egyptian  princes  over  to  the  Assyri- 
an interest.  Being  allowed  more  local  free- 
dom by  the  Assyrian  king,  they  preferred 
his  rule  to  that  of  the  more  oppressive 
Ethiopian  monarch.  Tirhakah's  stepson 
and  succe.s.sor,  Rut-amimon — the  llrdamane 
of  the  Assyrian  inscriptions — endeavored  to 
maintain  the  Ethiopian  power  in  Egj'pt  ; 
and  descending  the  Nile,  he  re-occupied 
Thebes  and  Memphis,  drove  the  Assyrians 
out  of  Egypt  and  made  him.self  master  of 
the  country;  but  was  soon  driven  back  into 
Ethiopia  by  Asshur-bani-pal.  Rut-ammon's 
successor,  Mi-ammon-Nut,  tells  us  that  in 
the  fir.st  year  of  his  reign  (about  B.  C.  660), 
he  dreamed  that  a  serpent  appeared  on  his 
riglit  hand  and  another  on  his  left,  and 
when  he  woke  they  had  disappeared.  The 
interpreters  informed  him  that  this  signified 
that  he  would  rule  all  Egypt.  Thereupon 
Mi-ammon-Nut  led  a  hundred  thousand 
men  into  Egypt,  being  hailed  as  a  deli^'erer 
in  Upper  Egypt,  against  the  Assyrians,  who 
had  allowed  the  temples  to  go  to  decay, 
overturned  the  statues  of  the  gods,  confis- 
cated the  temple  revenues,  and  restrained 
the  priests  from  exercising  their  offices.  Mi- 
ammon-Nut  proclaimed  himself  the  cham- 
pion of  religion,  visited  the  temples,  led  the 
images  in  procession,  offered  rich  sacrifices 
and  paid  every  respect  to  the  priestlj'  col- 
leges.     For  this  reason  he  was  everj-wdiere 


recei\x-d  with  acclamations  in  I'pper  Egypt. 
In  Lower  ICgypt  he  was  opposed,  but  after 
a  great  victory  at  Memphis,  he  occupied  that 
cit}'  and  enlarged  and  beautified  the  temple 
of  Phthah.  The  chapel  to  Phthah-Sokari- 
Osiris,  recently  uncovered  b}-  M.  Mariette, 
is  full  of  Mi-anunon-Xut's  .sculptures  and  in- 
•scriptions,  its  stones  being  inlaid  with  gold, 
its  paneling  made  of  acacia-wood  .scented 
with  frankincense,  its  doors  of  polished  cop- 
per and  their  frames  of  iron.  The  princes 
of  the  Delta  submitted  and  were  generously 
pardoned,  governing  their  towns  as  Ethi- 
opian and  no  longer  as  Assyrian  vassals.  Mi- 
ammon-Nut  returned  to  Ethiopia,  and  the 
Ethiopian  joke  was  soon  shaken  off  by  the 
Egyptians.  The  pett}-  native  Egyptian 
states  for  many  years  remained  tributary 
to  Assyria,  as  the  employment  of  foreign 
mercenaries,  which  had  so  long  prevailed  in 
Eg\'pt,  had  deadened  the  national  spirit  and 
patriotism  of  the  I\gyptian  people,  and  thus 
made  it  easy  for  the  A.ssj-rians  to  hold  the 
countrj'  in  subjedlion. 

PsAMMETiCHUS,  oue  of  the  native  vice- 
roys under  the  Assyrian  monarch,  encour- 
aged by  the  growing  weakness  of  the  As- 
syrian Empire,  which  was  obliged  to  recall 
its  garrisons  from  Egypt  to  defend  itself 
against  the  destructive  inroads  of  Scj'thian 
hordes  from  Central  Asia,  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity to  throw  off  his  allegiance  to  Assj'ria, 
and  crushing  the  opposition  of  the  native 
viceroy's,  founded  the  Twenty-sixth  Dy- 
nasty, thus  placing  E^gypt  once  more  under 
the  swa}^  of  its  native  kings,  after  a  century 
of  foreign  domtnion,  Ethiopian  and  Assyr- 
ian, B.  C.  632.  Psammetichus  conciliated 
the  Ethiopian  party  by  mariying  the  daugh- 
ter and  heiress  of  the  King  of  Thebes,  whom 
he  had  deposed,  and  thus  secured  the  adhe- 
sion of  Upper  Egypt,  where  the  Ethiopians 
were  still  popular.  He  was  a  wise  and  lib- 
eral sovereign,  and  under  his  rule  the  arts 
and  sciences  began  to  revive.  He  con- 
structed many  great  works  throughout  the 
kingdom.  The  new  culture  was  not  purely 
native  Egyptian.  Foreign  wars,  coloniza- 
tion andconnnercial  intercourse  had  brought 
immense  numbers  of  foreign  settlers — Ethi- 


rai.iriCAi.   iiisroRV. 


59 


opians,  Phccniciaiis.  Jews  and  Checks — into 
the  Egyptian  cities.  The  new  art  was 
widely  different  from  the  classic  art  of  Old 
Epvpt.  The  Kgypt  of  the  Pharaohs  was 
beyond  resurrection,  the  old  ei\'ili/alion  had 
perished,  and  the  native  li)ut;ue  had  heen 
corrupted. 

P.sannnetichus  was  also  a  j;rcat  warrior. 
He  reduced  part  of  Ethiopia  and  subdued 
the  Philistines,  but  his  continuance  of  the 
u.se  of  foreign  troops  and  liis  ein])lo\-nient 
of  Greek  mercenaries  offended  the  warrior 
class  of  Egypt,  of  whom  two  hundred  and 
forty  thou.sand  emigrated  to  I'Uhiopia,  reject- 
ing every  entreaty  of  Psammetichus  to  re- 
turn to  their  native  land,  and  thus  striking 
a  fatal  blow  at  the  reviving  prosperity  of 
Egypt.  Psanunetichus  attempted  the  ccni- 
<]uest  of  Palestine  and  Syria,  but  was 
thwarted  in  his  designs  by  the  stubborn  re- 
sistance of  the  Philistine  city  of  A.shdod, 
which  endured  a  siege  of  twenty-nine  years 
before  it  was  taken.  He  encouraged  com- 
merce and  friendl>'  intercourse  with  other 
nations. 

Psammetichus  died  in  6io  15.  C,  and  was 
succeeded  by  his  son  Nkko,  under  whom 
the  navy  and  connnerce  of  Egypt  were 
largely  augmented.  The  great  increase  in  the 
number  of  foreign  colonists  in  EgA'pt  gave 
rise  to  a  new  class  of  interpreters,  through 
whose  medium  foreign  intercourse  was  im- 
mensely facilitated.  Neko  endeavored  to 
reopen  the  great  canal  from  the  Nile  to  the 
Ked  Sea,  which  had  been  constru(fted  during 
the  reign  of  Rameses  the  Great,  but  aban- 
doned becau.se  the  oracle  had  instructed  him 
that  he  was  laboring  for  the  l)arbarian. 
Under  Neko's  au.spices,  an  P^gj-ptian  fleet, 
manned  by  Pha'uician  .seamen,  .sailed  down 
the  Red  Sea,  and  after  an  absence  of  three 
years,  during  wliicli  tlie\-  twice  landed, 
sowed  grain  and  gathered  a  har\x'st,  they 
returned  to  ligypt  l)y  way  of  the  Pillars  of 
Hercules  ( Straits  of  Gibraltar  )  and  tlie 
Mediterranean  ;  thus  making  the  circiun- 
navigation  of  Africa  two  thou.sand  years 
before  the  famous  voyage  of  Va.sco  da 
Gania  around  the  same  continent. 

Neko's  military  enterprises  were  ble.s.sed 


with  but  varied  fortune.  The  great  empire 
of  Assyria  had  already  fallen  before  the  con- 
(piering  arms  of  Media  and  Babylon.  Neko 
prepared  to  di.spute  the  dominion  of  the 
workl  with  the  Habylonian  monarch.  After 
invading  Palestine  and  defeating  and  killing 
Josiah,  King  of  Judah,  at  Megiddo,  Neko 
con(iuered  all  the  country  eastward  to  the 
Ivuphrates;  but  Nabopolas.sar,  King  of  Babj-- 
lon,  .sent  his  .son  Nebuchadnezzar,  with  a 
large  army,  to  drive  the  ICgyptians  out  of 
Asia.  In  the  great  and  deci.sive  battle  of 
Carchemish,  Neko  was  totally  defeated  by 
Nebuchadnezzar,  and  Ivgypt's  power  in  the 
East  was  ended  forever,  all  of  Neko's  Asi- 
atic contpiests  falling  into  the  hands  of 
Babylon,  B.  C.  605. 

Neko  died  in  594  B.  C,  and  was  .suc- 
ceeded by  his  .son,  Ps.\mmis,  whose  .short 
reign  of  six  years  was  only  distinguished 
for  an  e.Kpedition  into  PUhiopia.  His  son  and 
successor,  ITaii.\bra — the  Pharaoh  Hophra 
of  Scripture  and  the  Apries  of  Herodotus — 
who  reigned  nineteen  years,  renewed  the 
warlike  .schemes  of  his  grandfather,  besieged 
vSidon  and  fought  a  naval  battle  with  Tyre, 
but  failed  in  his  attempt  to  conquer  Phoe- 
nicia. He  formed  an  alliance  with  Zede- 
kiah,  King  of  Judah,  who  endeavored  to 
free  him.self  from  the  Babylonian  yoke;  Init 
the  great  Babylonian  king,  Nebuchadnez- 
zar, quickly  invaded  Palestine,  besieged  and 
took  Jerusalem,  pillaged  the  city  and  the 
Temple,  and  thus  broke  the  power  of  the 
allies  and  jnit  an  end  to  the  struggle  by 
driving  the  Egj'ptian  monarch  back  into 
his  own  kingdom.  Uahabra  was  afterward 
defeated  in  an  expedition  against  the  Greek 
colony  of  Cyrene,  west  of  Egi'pt,  in  con.se- 
quence  of  which  his  native  .soldiers  revolted 
and  dethroned  him;  and  the  revolutionary 
leader,  Amasis,  with  the  aid  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar, who  had  twice  invaded  I'^gvpt,  (  B. 
C.  5cSi  and  570),  was  placed  upon  the  Ivg3"p- 
tian  throne  as  king,  tributary  to  the  Bab\-- 
lonian  monarch. 

Amasis  reigned  forty-one  years,  at  first  as 
atributarx  to  Babylon,  but  he  afterward  cast 
oflFthis  yoke  and  increased  his  influence  by 
marrying  Nitocris,  the  sister  of  hispredeces- 


6o 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  Y.—EG^  'PT 


sor.  He  adorned  vSai.s,  his  capital,  with  mag- 
nificent building.s  ;  and  numerous  monu- 
ments of  his  reign,  found  in  all  parts  of  the 
country,  attest  his  liberal  patronage  of  the 
arts;  while  his  friendlj-  foreign  policy  toward 
Cyrene  and  the  other  Greek  states,  and  his 
encouragement  to  Greek  merchants  to  settle 
in  Egj'pt,  added  immen.sely  to  the  wealth  of 
the  country.  He  conquered  the  island  of 
Cyprus  and  reduced  it  to  tribute. 

Alarmed  by  the  growing  power  of  Persia 
under  its  renowned  monarch,  Cyrus  the 
Great,  who  had  conquered  Media  and  Baby- 
lon, Amasis  allied  himself  with  Croesus, 
King  of  Lydia,  and  Polycrates  of  Samos; 
but  before  his  policy  was  produ<5live  of  any 
results,  he  died,  B.  C.  525,  and  was  succeeded 
on  the  throne  of  Egypt  by  Psammenitus. 
Cambyses,  King  of  Persia,  the  son  and  suc- 
cessor of  Cyrus  the  Great,  was  already  on 
the  march  toward  Egypt.  The  Egyptian 
anuy  advanced  to  Pelusium  to  meet  the  in- 
vader, but  was  there  defeated  in  a  pitched 
battle  and  driven  back  to  Memphis,  the  cap- 
ital, which  was  besieged  and  taken  by  the 
Persian  king.  Psammenitus  was  taken  pris- 
oner after  a  reign  of  only  six  months,  and 
soon  afterward  put  to  death  by  the   hard- 


hearted Cambyses,  who  suspeifted  him  of 
a  design  to  recover  his  power.  With  the 
tragic  end  of  Psammenitus  perished  the 
ancient  kingdom  of  Egypt,  which  had  ex- 
isted for  over  two  thousand  years,  from  the 
time  of  the  founding  of  the  Old  Empire  by 
Menes ;  and  the  celebrated  land  of  the  Pha- 
raohs became  a  mere  province  of  the  vast 
Medo-Persian  Empire  (B.  C.  525). 

The  tj-ranny  and  cruelty  of  Cambyses 
produced  in  the  hearts  of  the  Egj'ptians  the 
most  implacable  hatred  of  Persia;  and  dur- 
ing a  period  of  two  centuries  they  con- 
stantlj'  plotted  against  the  Twenty-seventh, 
or  Persian  Dynasty,  and  under  three  native 
dynasties— the  Twentj'-eighth,  Twenty-ninth 
and  Thirtieth — regained  their  independence, 
w^hich  they  as  often  lost.  The  accounts  of 
these  revolts  and  short  spasms  of  independ- 
ence will  be  narrated  in  the  history  of  the 
Medo-Persian  Empire.  Since  its  conquest 
by  the  Persians,  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs 
has  been  successively  under  the  sway  of  the 
Persians,  the  Macedonians,  the  Romans,  the 
Saracens,  the  Mamelukes,  and  the  Ottoman 
Turks ;  the  last  of  whom  have  held  the 
country  tributarj-  for  the  last  three  and  a 
half  centuries. 


MANETHO'S  THIRTY   EGYPTIAN   DYNASTIES. 
OLD   EMPIRE. 


Contemporary  Dynasties  from  about  B.  C.  2700  to  about  B.  C.  2450. 

FIRST  dynasty  (THINITE). 

THIRD  DYNASTY  (MEMPHITE). 

KINGS. 

YEARS  ACCORDING  TO 

KINGS. 

YEARS  ACCORDING  TO 

EUSEBIUS. 

AFRICANUS. 

EUSEBraS. 

AFRICANUS. 

Menes, 

60 

27 

39 
42 
20 
26 

18 
26 

62 
57 
31 
23 
20 
26 
18 
26 

Necherophes, 

tosorthrus 

TVREIS                

. 

28 
29 

7 
17 
16 

19 
42 

26 

Athothis,  or  Thoth,    .   . 

Unephes, 

Kenkenes 

usaph^dus 

MiEBIDUS, 

Semempsf<s 

Bieneches, 

Mksochris                    .    .    . 

TOSFRTASIS                      .... 

Aches, 

Sfphuris                   .... 

1 

258 

263 

298 

•   214 

POI.ITICAI.    ins  TOR  ) ' 


6i 


Contemporary  Dynasties  from  about  B.  C.  2450  to  about  B.  C.  2220. 


SECOND  OR  BRANCH  DY- 
NASTY (THINITK). 


YEARS. 

BOETHIIS,  or  BOCHUS,    ...     38 
KcEECHUS,  or  Kekeou,  .    .    39 

BiNOTHRIS 47 

Ti,AS 17 

Sethenes 41 

Chores 17 

Nephercheres, 25 

Sesochris 48 

Cheneres 30 

302 


FOURTH  OR  CHIEF  DY- 
NASTY (MEMl'HITE). 


FIFTH  OR  BRANCH  DY- 
NASTY (ELErHANTINE). 


YEARS. 

Seneferu,  or  SoRUS,   ...    29 
Khufu,    I  ,, 

Shafra,  \ 

Menkaura,  or  Mencheres  63 
Ratoises, 25 

BiCHERlS,       22 

Sebercheres 7 

Thamphthis, 9 


YEARS. 

USERCHERF.S,  orOSIRKEF,    .     28 

Sephrp;s 13 

Nephercheres,    or  Nofr- 

IR-KE-RE 20 

SiSIRES,  or  CSIR-N-RE,       .     .        7 

Cheres, 20 

Rathures 44 

Mencheres 9 

Tancheres, 44 

Onnus,  or  U-NDS, a 

218 


Contemporary  Dynasties  from  about  B.  C.  2220  to  about  B.  C.  2080. 


SECOND  DYNAS- 
TY (THINITE). 


SIXTH  DYNASTY 
(MEMPHITE). 


FIFTH  DYNASTY 
(ELEPHANTINE). 


NINTH  DYNASTY 
(heracleopoute). 


ELEVENTH  DY- 
NASTY (THEBAN). 


Continuing  under 
the  last  three 
kings. 


YE.ARS. 

Othoes,  ...    30 

Phios 53 

Methosuphis,     7 
Phiops,  or  Pe- 

pi 100 

Menthesuphis,  I 
Nitocris,     or 

NEIT-AKRET,   12 

U3 


Continuing. 


Achthoes, 

the  Antefs, 

and  the 

Mentu-hoteps. 


Sixteen  Kings. 


Ammenemes  or 
Amun-m-he. 


Contemporary  Dynasties  from  about  B.  C.  2080  to  B.  C.   1900. 


en  _; 

is 


ffiW 


O 


WW 


'-'(/J 

zw 


Continuinj^ 

till  about 

B.   C.    1850. 


Continuing. 


YEARS. 

Sesonchosis,    .    .    . 
Usurtasen  I.,     .    .    46 
Ammenemes  II.,  or 

Amun-m-he  II.,  .    38 
Usurtasen  II.,    .   .    48 
McERis,    or    Amun- 
m-he  III.,     ...      8 

Ameres 8 

Ammenemes  III.,  or 

Amun-m-he  IV.,       8 
Skemiophris,      .    .      4 

160 


Seventy-six 
Kings  in 
484  years. 


THIRTEENTH  DY- 
NASTY (THEBAN). 


Salatis,  .  19 
Bnon,  .  .  44 
Apachnas,  36 
.\pophis, 
J.\nnas, 
Asses,  . 


Thirty  Kings 

in 

518  years. 


61 
49 


259 


62 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— EGYPT. 
MIDDLE  EMPIRE.— (Hyksos,  or  Shepherd  Kings.) 


Contemporary  Dynasties  from  about  B.  C.  1900  to  about  B.  C.  1600. 


SEVENTH   and   EIGHTH 

DYNASTIES  (MEMPHITE). 


TENTH  DYNASTY 
(HERACLEOPOLITE). 


SEVENTEENTH  DYNASTY 
(HYKSOS). 


NEW   EMPIRE. 


EIGHTEENTH    DYNASTY— THEBAN. 

(  B.  C.  1600-1400.) 
Amosis,  Aahmes,  or  Ames,  (B.  C.  1600-1575). 
Amen-hoTEp  I.,  Amenophis  I.,  or  Amuxoph 

I.,  (b.  c.  1575-1562- 

Thothmes,  I. 

Thothmes  H.,  and  Hatus.\  or  Amenset,  (B. 

C.  1562-1547). 
Thothmes  III.,  (B.  C.  1547-1493). 
Amen-hotep   II.,    Amenophis  II.,   or  .•Vmu- 

NOPH  II.,  (B.  C.  1493-1485). 
Thothmes  IV.,  (B.  C.  1485-1477). 
Amen-hotep  III.,  Amenophis   III.,  or  Amu- 

noph  III.,  (B.  C.  1477-1441). 
Amen-hotep  IV.,  Amenophis  IV.,  or  Amu- 

NOPH  IV. 

Saanekht.   , 

Al. 

Tutankhamen. 

Horemheb-Merienammon,  or  HORUS. 

KESITOT,  or  Rathotis. 

NINETEENTH  DY'NASTY— THEBAN. 
(B.  C.  1400-1280). 

RamESES  I. 

Seti  I. 

Rameses  Meriamon,  or  the  Great  (Sesos- 

TRIS). 

Menepta,  or  Menephthah. 

Seti  II. 

Siphthah. 

TWENTIETH   DYNASTY— THEBAN. 
(B.  C.  12S0-1100). 

Setnekht. 

Rameses  III.,  (B.  C.  1269-1237). 

Rameses  IV. 

Rameses  V. 

Rameses  VI.,  and  JlERi-TuM. 

Rameses  VII. 

Rameses  VIII. 

Rameses  IX. 

Rameses  X. 

Rameses  XI. 

Rameses  XII. 

Rameses  XIII. 

TWENTY-FIRST   DYNASTY— TANITE. 
(B.  C.  1100-993). 
Pehor,  Herhor,  or  Smendes. 
Piankh,  or  Pisham  I. 
PiNETEM  I. 

Men-khepr-ra. 

Pa-seb-en-sha. 

PiNETEM  II.,  or  Pisham  II. 

Hor-Pasebensii.\. 


TWENTY-SECOND  DYNAvSTY- 
(B.  C.  993-847). 


-BUBASTITE. 


Sheshonk  I.,  or  Shishak  I.,  (B.  C.  993-972). 

OSORKON  I.,   (B.  C.  972-957;. 

Takelot  I.,  (B.  C.  957-956). 

OSORKON  II.,  (B.  C.  956-934). 

Sheshonk  II. 
Takelot  II. 

SHESHC^'K  III. 
PiMAI. 

Sheshonk  IV. 

TWENTY-THIRD  DYNASTY— TANITE. 
(B.  C.  847-75S). 
Petubastes,  or  Petsupasht,  (B.  C.  847-807) 

OSORKON  IV.,   (B.  C.  807-799). 

Psammus,  or  PSEMUT,  (B.  C.  799-7S9). 
Zet,  or  Seti  HI.,  (B.  C.  789-758)- 

TWENTY-FOURTH   DYNASTY— SAITE. 
(B.  C.   758-730)- 
Bekenhauf,  or  Bocchoris. 

TWENTY-FIFTH   DYNASTY— ETHIOPIAN. 
(B.  C.  724-650). 
Sabaco,  or  Shabak,  (B.  C.  724-712). 
Shabatok,  (B.  C.  712-698). 
Tirhakah,  or  Tehrak,  (B.  C.  698-667). 
Rut-ammon.  (B.  C.  667-660). 
Mi-ammon-Nut,  (B.  C.  660-650). 

TWENTY-SIXTH   DYNASTY— SAITE. 
(B.  C.  650-525). 
PSAMMETICHUS,  or  PsamaTik  I.,  (B.   C.   665- 

610). 
Neko,  (B.  C.  610-594). 

PsAMMis,  or  Psamatik  II.,  (B.  C.  594-588). 
Uahabra,  Apries,  or  Pharaoh  Hophra,  (B. 

C.  588-569). 
Amasis,  Aahmes,  or  Ames,  (B.  C.  569-525). 
Psammenitus,  or  Psamatik  III.,  (B.  C.  525). 

TWENTY-SEVENTH   DYNASTY— PERSIAN. 
(B.  C.  525-332)- 

twenty'-eighth  dynasty— native. 

(B.  C.  460-455). 
Amyrt^us. 

twenty-ninth  dynasty— jiendesian. 

(B.  C.  405-384). 
Neferites,  or  Nefaorot,  (B.  C.  405-399)- 
Achoris,  or  Hakar,  (B.  C.  399-386;. 
Psammuthis,  (B.  C.  386-385). 
Nepherites  II.,  (B.  C.  384). 

THIRTIETH   DY'NASTY— SEBENNYTIC. 
(B.  C.  384-346). 
Nectanebo  I.,  or  Nekht-nebef,  (B.  C.  3S4- 

366). 

Teos,  or  Tachos,  (B.  C.  366-364). 
Nectanebo  II.,  (B.  C.  364-346). 


cf\'ii.i/..\'nox. 


63 


SECTION    IV.— EGYPTIAN    CI\'ITJZ ATION. 


|ODERN  ethnologists,  in  gen- 
eral, regard  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tians as  of  Asiatic  origin,  since 
they  differed  so  much  from 
other  African  races,  such  as  the 
Berbers  and  the  Negroes,  in  language,  the 
shape  of  their  skulls,  and  their  physiog- 
nomy. The  skulls  of  the  ancient  Egyptians, 
and  of  their  legitimate  descendants,  the 
modem  Copts,  are  eminently  Caucasian; 
while  the  Egyptian  language  has  analogies 
connecting  it  with  the  Aryan  and  Semitic 
tongues.  The  conclusion  that  the  Egj'p- 
tians,  at  least  the  upper  and  middle  classes 
of  them,  were  Asiatic  inmiigrants  into  the 
Nile  valley,  is  therefore  a  safe  one.  They 
are  believed  to  have  been  kindred  with 
other  races  of  South-western  Asia,  such  as 
the  Canaanites,  the  primitive  Chaldaeans,  and 
the  Southern  Arabs.  We  nuist  accordingly 
conclude  that  Syria  or  Arabia  was 
the  cradle  of  the  Egyptian  nation. 

Some  have  maintained  that  the 
immigration  was  from  the  south  of 
the  Nile  vallej-,  and  that  the  J-lgyp- 
tians  were  of  Ethiopian  origin;  but 
recent  research  has  shown  conclus- 
ively that  the  movement  of  the 
Egyptians  was  from  north  to  south. 
Says  Mr.  Birch,  the  latest  English 
historian  of  Egypt ;  ' '  The  study  of 
the  monuments  furnishes  incontro- 
vertible evidence  tha*^  the  historical 
series  of  Egyptian  temples,  tombs 
and  cities,  construdted  on  either 
bank  of  the  Nile,  follow  one  upon 
another  in  chronological  order,  in 
such  .sort  that  the  monuments  of  the  greatest 
antiquity,  the  Pyramids  for  instance,  are 
situated  furthest  to  the  north ;  while  the 
nearer  one  approaches  the  Ethiopian  cata- 
racts, the  more  do  the  monuments  lose  the 
stamp  of  antiquity,  and  the  more  plainly  do 
they  show  the  decline  of  art,  of  beauty,  and 
of  good  taste.  Moreover,  in  Ethiopia  itself 
the  existing  remains  present  us  with  a  st\le 
of  art  that  is  absolutely  devoid  of  originality. 


At  the  first  glance  one  can  easily  see  that  it 
rcpre.'^ents  Ivgyptian  art  in  its  degeneracy, 
and  that  art  ill  understood  and  ill  executed. 
The  utmost  height  to  which  ICthiopian  civili- 
zation ever  reached  was  a  mere  rude  imita- 
tion, alike  in  .science  and  in  art,  of  Egxptian 
models. ' ' 

The  color  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  was 
brown,  like  that  of  the  modern  Copts.  For 
this  we  ha\e  the  authority  of  the  numu- 
ments.  The  women  were  lighter  than  the 
men,  being  depicted  on  the  monuments  as 
yellow.  The  hair  was  usually  black  and 
straight,  though  .sometimes  it  grew  in  short, 
crisp  curls.  Men  generally  .shaved  both 
hair  and  beard,  and  went  about  with  their 
heads  perfectly  bare,  or  else  wore  wigs  or  a 
clo.se-fitting  cap.  Women  always  wore  their 
own  hair,  and  plaited  it  in  long  tresses,  .some- 
times extending  down   to  the   waist.     The 


I)RE.SSES   OF    KGV1'TI.\N    WO.MKN. 

hair  of  the  wigs,  and  that  found  sometimes 
on  the  heads  of  mummies,  is  coarse. 

The  features  of  the  Egyptians  resembled 
those  of  their  Syrian  neighbors.  The  fore- 
head was  straight,  but  low;  the  no.se  gener- 
ally long,  though  .sometimes  slightly  aqui- 
line. The  lips  were  over  full,  but  the  upper 
lip  was  short,  and  the  mouth  was  seldom  too 


64 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y  —  EG\  'PT. 


wide.  The  chin  was  good,  being  well 
rounded,  and  neither  receding  nor  extending 
too  far.  The  eye  was  a  long,  narrow  slit, 
like  that  of  the  Chinese,  but  placed  horizon- 
tally, instead  of  obliquely.  The  eyebrow, 
likewise  long  and  thin,  shaded  the  eye. 
The  coloring  was  always  dark;  the  hair, 
eyebrows,  eyelashes,  and  beard  (where  there 
was  one),  being  black,  or  nearly  so,  and  the 
ej'es  black  or  dark  brown. 

The  Egyptians  resembled  the  modern 
Arabs  in  form.  They  were  tall,  with  long 
and  supple  limbs,  and  with  the  head  well 
placed  upon  the  shoulders.  Their  move- 
ments were  graceful,  their  carriage  dignified. 
Generally,  however,  their  frames  were  spare, 
and  their  hands  and  feet  unduly  large.  The 
women  were  as  thin  as  the  men,  and  their 
fonns  were  almost  similar.  Children,  how- 
ever, were  sufficiently  plump. 

The  Egyptians  were  divided  into  distindl 
tribes.  We  read  in  the  Mosaic  account  of 
Ludim,  Anamim,  Lebahim,  Naphtuhim, 
Pathrusim,  Casluhim  and  Caphtorim  as  dis- 
tin<5t  ' '  sons  of  Misraim  "  —  as  separate 
tribes  of  the  people  who  occupied  the  ' '  two 
Egypts." 

The  Egyptians  ranked  high  intellecflually 
among  the  ancient  nations.  In  art  they 
exhibited  wonderful  power.  Mr.  Birch  says 
that  their  archite(?ture  "was  on  the  grand- 
est scale,  and  dwarfs  the  Greek  in  compar- 
ison." The  Egyptians  had  a  high  moral 
standard  theoretically,  but  pracflically  their 
morals  were  very  lax.  Saj'S  Brugsch,  the 
eminent  German  Egyptologist:  "The  forty- 
two  laws  of  the  Egyptian  religion,  contained 
in  the  125th  chapter  of  the  Book  of  the 
Dead,  fall  short  in  nothing  of  the  teachings 
of  Christianity . ' '  The  .same  authority  further 
says  that  Moses,  in  compiling  his  code  of 
laws,  did  only  "translate  into  Hebrew  the 
religious  precepts  which  he  found  in  the 
sacred  Ijooks "  of  the  Egyptians,  among 
whom  he  had  been  brought  up.  The 
Egyptian  women  were  notoriously  loose  in 
their  characfter,  exceedingly  immodest  and 
licentious.  The  men  openly  practiced  im- 
purity, and  boasted  of  it  in  their  writings. 
An   inclination  to  luxurious  living  was  also 


a  defecl  in  the  Egyptian  charafler;  and 
drunkenness  was  a  connnon  vice  among 
both  sexes,  all  the  appeals  and  exhortations 
of  the  priests  in  favor  of  temperance  being 
unavailing  to  stem  the  tide  of  general  de- 
bauchery. Sensual  pleasure  and  amusement 
seemed  the  ends  of  existence  among  the 
upper  classes  in  general.  False  hair  was 
worn,  dyes  and  cosmetics  were  used  to  pro- 
duce artificial  beaut)-,  magnificent  dress 
was  worn,  equipages  were  splendid,  great 
banquets  were  frequently  held,  games  and 
sports  were  constant,  and  life  was  passed  in 
feasting,  sport  and  a  continual  succession 
of  enjoyments.  The  effetft  of  self-indul- 
gence is  seen  in  the  national  decay  of  these 
people,  and  their  successive  subjections  to 
hardier  races,  such  as  the  Ethiopians,  Assyr- 
ians, Babylonians,  Persians,  and  Macedo- 
nian Greeks. 

Their  family  affecflion  is  shown  by  the 
paintings,  where  husbands  and  wives  are 
everj-where  represented  with  their  arms 
around  each  other's  necks.  The  Egyptians 
were  industrious,  cheerful  and  gay  even 
under  hardships;  but  they  were  cruel,  vin- 
dicftive,  treacherous,  avaricious,  supersti- 
tious and  servile.  The  use  of  the  basti- 
nado was  universal,  being  employed  to  in- 
flicfl  punishment  for  minor  offenses,  while 
superiors  freely  beat  inferiors.  The  poor 
peasantry  were  forced  by  blows  to  yield  to 
the  extortions  of  the  tax-gatherers,  and 
slaves  were  impelled  to  labor  under  fear  of 
the  rod,  which  the  taskmaster  freely  applied 
to  the  backs  of  laggards.  The  passions  of 
the  Egyptians  often  broke  out  in  riot,  insur- 
recflion  and  murder.  They  were  extremely 
fanatical  in  religious  belief,  and  ready  to 
wipe  out  in  blood  any  insult  to  their  re- 
ligion. 

They  were  at  times  timid,  submissive 
and  sycophantic.  The  lower  classes  pros- 
trated themselves  before  their  superiors, 
tamely  submitting  to  blows.  The  great 
nobles  were  equalh^  servile  to  their  so\-er- 
eign,  addressing  him  as  a  god,  and  ascribing 
to  him  their  continued  existence  in  this  life. 

Though  successful  in  their  early  wars, 
when  their  disciplined  troops  attacked  un- 


B      a  g  >  S  S 


'-5  > 

•Si  f  s 

OS  a  t  °  a 

Cli  H  ^    S  B^ 


S    u 


CIVIIJ/.ATION. 


65 


disciplined  hordes,  tlic)'  were  defeated  when- 
ever they  encountered  a  brave  and  skiUful 
enemy.  Their  readiness  to  break  engage- 
ments when  their  fulfdhnent  was  inconve- 
nient, made  them  unrehable  alHes;  and  for 
this  reason  the  Hebrew  prophet  Isaiah 
spoke  of  Egypt  as  a  "braised  reed,  whereon 
if  a  man  lean,  it  will  go  into  his  hand  and 
pierce  it." 

The  government  of  Eg>'pt  was  a  theo- 
cratic monarchy,  the  king  being  the  earthlj' 
representative  of  the  Deity.  His  body  was 
considered  sacred,  and  he  was  worshiped  as 
a  god.  His  title  of  Phrah,  or  Pharaoh,  sig- 
nifying the  Sun,  ranked  him  as  the  emblem 


DRESS   OK  THE    EGYPTIAN    KING. 

of  Helios,  or  Phrah,  or  Ra,  the  Sun-god.  His 
right  and  duty  was  to  preside  over  the  sacri- 
fices and  to  pour  out  libations  to  the  gods. 
He  was  thus  the  head  of  the  national  relig- 
ion, as  well  as  the  civil  and  political  head  of 
the  state.  The  kingly  office  was  hereditar>% 
but  the  monarch  was  not  an  absolute  ruler ; 
and  the  political  system  was  a  combination 
of  theocracj-,  monarch)-  and  hierarchy,  the 
king's  power  being  more  or  less  curtailed  by 
the  power  of  the  priesthood,  or  hierarchical 
class.  In  this  respecfl  Egypt  differed  from  an 
Asiatic  despotism,  where  the  sovereign  was 
unlimited  lord  and  master  over  his  subjecfts. 
An  Egyptian  Pharaoh  did  not  possess  un- 
5 


limited  povver  over  the  lives  and  property  of 
his  people  but  his  authority  was  strictly 
defined  and  limited  by  law,  and  unlliingwas 
left  to  passion  or  caprice.  The  monarch, 
howe\'er,  po.s.sessed  the  right  to  make  new 
laws.  The  king's  public  duties  and  personal 
habits  were  nunutely  defined  by  religious 
regulations,  the  sacred  books  prescribing  his 
food,  drink,  dress  and  the  employment  of 
his  time,  thus  allowing  him  less  individual 
freedom  than  was  enjoyed  by  the  humblest 
and  most  degraded  of  his  subjects.  He  was 
not  permitted  to  give  way  to  excessive  in- 
dulgence of  any  kind.  No  slave  or  hireling 
was  permitted  to  hold  oflSce  about  his  per- 
son, for  fear  that  he  might  be  con- 
taminated bj-  such  unworthy  pres- 
ence, but  those  of  the  highest  rank 
only  were  accorded  the  privilege 
of  attending  him  and  ministering 
to  his  wants.  The  ritual  of  every 
moniing's  worship  constantly  re- 
freshed his  memorj'  with  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  virtues  of  former 
kings,  and  reminded  him  of  his 
own  kingly  and  per-sonal  duties. 
After  his  death  his  body  was 
placed  in  an  open  court,  where  any 
and  every  one  of  his  subjects 
might  bring  accusations  against 
him ;  and  if  his  conduct  in  life 
was  proven  to  have  been  unworthj- 
his  exalted  station,  he  was  for- 
ever excluded  from  the  tombs  of 
his  ancestors. 

The  ancient  Egyptians  were  divided  into 
classes  or  castes,  distinguished  by  their 
ranks  and  occupations;  the  priests  forming 
the  highest  caste,  the  warriors  the  second 
caste,  and  husbandmen,  gardeners,  boatmen 
and  herdsmen  the  lowest  caste. 

The  priesthood  possessed  great  authority 
in  the  .stati  and  were  the  "power  behind  the 
throne."  So  far  as  the  sovereign  was  con- 
cerned the}'  used  their  power  wisely  and 
well.  Their  habits  of  life  were  simple  and 
moderate.  Their  diet  was  plain  in  quality 
and  limited  in  quantity,  and  they  ab.stained 
from  fish,  mutton,  swine's  flesh,  beans,  peas, 
garlic,  leeks  and  onions,  which  were  articles 


66 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


of  food  among  the  common  people.  Tliej- 
bathed  twice  a  day  and  twice  during  the 
night,  some  of  the  more  stri(ft  in  water 
tasted  bj-  their  sacred  birds,  the  ibis,  to 
make  sure  of  being  purged  of  all  unclean- 
ness.  Their  abstinence,  purity  and  humil- 
ity, and  their  reputation  for  learning,  en- 
abled the  priests  to  hold  the  people  in  relig- 
ious, political  and  mental  subjection.  By 
their  knowledge  of  physical  .science  they 
could  frighten  and  terrorize  the  superstitious 
and  ignorant  lower  classes  by  optical  illu- 
sions and  other  tricks.  By  their  power  to 
try  the  dead  they  could  decide  the  fate  of 
any  man,  from  the  king  to  the  swineherd, 
by  refusing  him  a  pa.ssport  to  the  outer 
world.     The  priests  prescribed  the  religious 


ranked  next  to  the  sacerdotal,  or  priestlj- 
order,  numbered  about  four  hundred  thou- 
.sand  persons.  When  not  engaged  in  mili- 
tary .sen-ice,  either  in  foreign  wars,  in 
garri.sons  or  at  the  roj-al  court,  these  were 
.settled  on  their  lands,  which  were  located 
principally  on  the  east  side  of  the  Nile  or  in 
the  Delta,  which  portions  of  the  countr\' 
were  the  most  exposed  to  hostile  invasion 
by  a  foreign  foe.  Each  .soldier  was  allotted 
about  six  and  a  half  acres  of  land,  exempt 
from  all  taxation  or  tribute;  and  from  the 
proceeds  of  this  land  he  defrayed  the  ex- 
pen.ses  of  his  arms  and  equipments.  The 
soldier,  however,  could  not  engage  in  an>' 
art  or  trade.  The  lands  of  the  priests  and 
soldiers  were  considered  privileged  propert\-. 


p:gvpti.\n  soldiers  of  diffkrent  corps. 


ritual  of  every  Egyptian,  from  the  king  to 
the  meanest  of  his  subjet5ls. 

The  Eg>ptian  priesthood  embraced  an 
order  including  many  professions  and  occu- 
pations. They  alone  were  acquainted  with 
the  arts  of  reading  and  writing,  and  with 
medicine  and  the  other  sciences.  They  cul- 
tivated the  science  of  medicine  from  the 
earliest  ages.  The  universal  pracftice  of  em- 
balming was  exercised  by  the  physicians, 
thus  enabling  them  to  study  the  efFedts  of 
various  di.sea.ses  by  examining  the  body  after 
death.  Asiatic  monarchs  sent  tj  Egypt  for 
their  physicians,  and  the  fertile  .soil  of  the 
Nile  valley  furnished  drugs  for  the  whole 
ancient  civilized  world.  Even  in  our  own 
time  the  characfters  used  by  druggists  to  de- 
note drams  and  ounces  are  the  Eg>'ptian 
ciphers  adopted  by  the  Arabs. 

The    .soldiers,    oi'    military   ca.ste,    which 


while  all  other  lands  were  regarded  as  the 
king's  property,  and  were  rented  by  him 
to  farmers,  who  paid  a  yearly  rent  of  one- 
fifth  of  the  produce. 

Below  the  priests  and  warriors  were 
the  various  unprivileged  castes,  embracing 
husbandmen,  gardeners,  boatmen,  artisans 
of  various  kinds,  and  herdsmen,  compris- 
ing shepherds,  goatherds  and  swineherds. 
These  latter  were  intensely  de.spi.sed  as  the 
most  degraded  of  human  creatures,  and  were 
not  allowed  to  enter  the  temples.  All  castes 
below  the  priesthood  and  the  warrior  class 
were  deprived  of  all  political  rights  and  dis- 
qualified from  ownership  in  land. 

The  two  privileged  castes,  the  priests  and 
\varriors,  are  believed  to  have  been  the  de- 
scendants of  the  Asiatic  conquerors  and  im- 
migrants into  Egypt,  while  the  lower  clas,ses 
were  the  descendants  of  the  Ethiopian  abo- 


Cykvs  the  Great. 


Egyptian    King    in    War    Chariot  — Egyptian 
Warriors. 


Egyptian    Lady  — Egyptian    ooken— Egyptian 

TvADV. 


Egyptian    Ppiest  — Men    and    Woman    of    Low 
Castc 


MEDIA  AND  EGYPT. 


CIVir.IZATION. 


67 


rigines  of  the  Nile  valley.  The  I^gyptian 
castes  were  not  as  fixed  as  those  of  the  Hin- 
doos, as  the  educational  system  enabled  any- 
one of  superior  talent  to  rise  abo\-e  his 
native  rank.  Saj-s  Rawlinson:  "Castes,  in 
the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  did  not  exist 
in  Eg>pt,  since  a  son  was  not  absolutely 
compelled  to  follow  his  father's  profession.'' 
Intermarriages  sometimes  occurred  between 
members  of  the  priestly  and  warrior  castes, 
and  transitions  between  them  were  common. 
The  same  was  the  case  between  members  of 
the  various  unprivileged  orders.  Still,  in 
the  main,  the  same  rank,  professions  and 
occupations  remained  in  the  same  families 
for  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  years,  and  the 
evils  of  class  distinction  were  almost  equal 
to  those  of  the  fixed  castes  of  India.  The 
upper  classes  despised  all  handicrafts,  and 
"everj-  shepherd  was  an  abomination  in  the 
sight  of  an  Eg\ptian."  There  were  many 
slaves  who  had  been  captives  taken  in  war. 
The  class  system  tended  to  discourage  per- 
sonal ambition,  and  thus  to  check  all  prog- 
ress and  improvement  after  the  earliest  high 
state  of  civilization  had  been  attained,  and 
was  the  principal  cause  of  the  final  national 
decay  of  this  renowned  ancient  people. 

The  land  in  Eg}pt  belonged  exclusively 
to  the  king,  the  priests  and  the  soldiers, 
during  the  period  of  the  New  Empire;  all 
other  land-owners  having  surrendered  their 
proprietorship  to  the  king,  while  the  He- 
brew Joseph  was  prime  minister,  occupying 
them  only  afterward  as  tenants  of  the  crown 
by  paying  an  annual  rental  of  one-fifth  of 
the  produce. 

The  lot  of  the  agricultural  laborer  in 
Eg3'pt  was  a  hard  one.  There  were  few 
Eg3'ptian  peasants  rich  enough  to  rent  their 
farms  and  till  them  for  themselves.  Most 
of  them  were  hired  laborers  working  on  the 
estates  of  others,  under  the  supen-ision  of 
brutal  overseers  or  taskmasters,  who  applied 
the  bastinado  to  the  backs  of  the  idle  or  re- 
fraclorj-  on  the  slightest  pretext.  The  pea- 
sant farmer  was  not  much  better  off.  Writes 
Amenemun  to  Pentaour:  "Have  you  ever 
represented  to  yourself  the  estate  of  the 
rustic  who  tills  the  sjround  ?     Before  he  has 


put  the  sickle  to  the  crop,  the  locusts  have 
blasted  a  part  of  it;  then  come  the  rats  and 
the  birds.  If  he  is  slack. in  housing  his 
grain,  the  thieves  are  upon  him.  His  horse 
dies  of  weariness  as  it  drags  the  wain. 
Anon,  the  tax-gatherer  arrives;  his  agents 
are  anned  with  clubs;  he  has  Negroes  with 
him,  who  carrj-  whips  of  palm  branches. 
They  all  crj-,  '  Give  us  your  grain! '  and  he 
has  no  easy  way  of  avoiding  their  extortion- 
ate demands.  Next,  the  wretch  is  caught, 
bound  and  sent  off  to  work  without  wage  at 
the  canals;  his  wife  is  taken  and  chained; 
his  children  are  stripped  and  plundered." 
Tuaufsakhrat,  in  the  "Praise  of  Learning, " 
gives  a  similar  account  in  these  words: 
"The  little  laborer  having  a  field,  he  passes 
his  life  among  rustics;  he  is  worn  down  for 
vines  and  pigs,  to  make  his  kitchen  of  what 
his  fields  have;  his  clothes  are  heavy  with 
their  weight;  he  is  bound  as  a  forced 
laborer:  if  he  goes  forth  into  the  air,  he 
suffers,  having  to  quit  his  warm. fire-place; 
he  is  bastinadoed  with  a  stick  on  his  legs, 
and  seeks  to  save  him.self:  shut  against  him 
is  the  hall  of  everj-  house,  locked  are  all 
the  chambers. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  small  culti- 
vator was  oppressed  with  extortionate  taxa- 
tion, collected  by  the  brutal  tax-gatherers; 
that  forced  labors  were  exacted  of  him,  and 
that  he  was  bastinadoed  with  a  stick  on  the 
back  or  legs  if  he  resisted.  He  was  torn 
from  his  family  and  homestead,  and  forced 
to  labor  under  the  hot  Egyptian  sun  at 
cleaning  out  or  banking  up  the  canals. 
No  wages  being  paid  him,  and  insufficient 
food  being  furnished  him,  he  often  perished 
under  the  hardships  imposed  upon  him  by 
a  merciless  government.  If  an  iron  consti- 
tution saved  him  and  he  returned  home,  he 
frequently  found  his  family  dispersed,  his 
wife  carried  off.  and  his  mud  cabin  in  ruins. 
He  was  regarded  with  contempt,  not  alone 
by  the  privileged  classes,  but  also  by  their 
servants,  and  even  by  their  slaves. 

The  laws  of  Egj'pt  were  remarkable,  and 
are  another  evidence  of  the  high  civilization 
of  the  people.  Bossuet  has  said  that  "Eg>-pt 
was   the  source  of    all  good  government." 


68 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


Perjury  was  considered  the  most  heinous 
of  all  crimes — an  offense  alike  against  gods 
and  men — and  was  punishable  with  death. 
Any  one  seeing  a  person  defending  his  life 
against  a  murderer,  and  failing  to  render  him 
assistance,  was  also  capitally  punished,  as 
being  equally  guilty  with  the  assassin.      If 


The  Egyptians  were  the  first  people  to  or- 
ganize a  regular  ami)-,  and  thus  to  lay  the 
foundation  for  the  whole  system  of  ancient 
warfare,  including  the  military  systems  of 
the  ancient  Asiatic  monarchies.  The  war- 
chariots  formed  the  most  important  part  of 
an  Egyptian  army,  and  were  used  instead  of 


DISCIPLINED   TROOPS   OF   THE   EIGHTEENTH   DYNASTY. 


the  witness  were  unable  to  assist  the  defend- 
ant, he  was  bound  to  report  the  assailant 
to  the  lawful  authorities.  A  person  falsely 
accusing  another  was  punished  as  a  calum- 
niator. Everj'  Egyptian  was  bound  to  fur- 
nish the  authorities  with  a  written  state- 
ment of  his  means  of  liveli- 
hood ;  and  any  one  giving  a 
false  account,  or  following  an 
unlawful  pursuit,  was  pun- 
ished with  death.  A  wilful 
murderer  was  likewise  put 
to  death.  A  judge  who  con- 
demned an  innocent  person 
to  death  was  punished  as  a 
deliberate  murderer.  A  sol- 
dier who  deserted  his  ranks 
was  punished  with  infamy, 
but  could  recover  his  lost 
honor  by  future  gallant  be- 
havior. Making  counterfeit 
money,  false  weights,  scales 
or  measures,  falsifying  public 
records,  or  forging  documents,  were  crimes 
puni.shed  with  the  loss  of  both  hands.  A 
man's  property  could  be  seized  for  debt,  but 
not  his  person  ;  and  if  a  debtor  swore  that  he 
owed  nothing  to  a  creditor  who  was  without 
a  bond,  the  debt  was  void.  The  interest 
was  never  permitted  to  exceed  the  principal. 


cavalry.  These  chariots  were  mounted  on 
two  wheels,  and  were  verj'  carefuUj'  made. 
They  were  hung  low,  were  open  behind  to 
enable  the  warrior  to  step  in  and  out  with 
ease,  and  had  no  seat.  They  were  drawn  by 
two  hor.ses,  and  usually  contained  two  war- 


EGVPTIAN   WAR-CHARIOT. 

riors,  one  to  manage  the  horses,  and  the 
other  to  fight.  The  war-chariots  of  differ- 
ent nations  differed  from  each  other.  The 
harness  and  housings  of  the  horses  were 
elegantly  decorated.  A  quiver  and  bow- 
ca.se,  tastefully  and  skillfully  decorated,  were 
fixed  to  the  chariot   ou  the   outside.     The 


cn'ii.i/.A'noN. 


69 


Kgyptiaii    national    weapon    was    the    bow, 
used  by  infantry  and  charioteers. 

The  Ivgyptians  were  the  most  skillfnl  arch- 
ers of  antiqnity.  Their  bows  were  the  most 
powerful,  and  their  arrows,  drawn  to  the 
ear,  were  the  best  aimed,  of  those  of  all 
ancient  nations.  The  children  of  the  mili- 
tary caste  were  trained  to  the  pradlice  of 
archery  from  the  earliest  infancy.  The 
heavy  anns  of  the  Egyptian  in- 
fantry were  a  .spear,  a  dagger,  a 
short  sword,  a  pole-ax,  a  battle- 
ax,  a  helmet  and  a  .shield.  Some 
of  the  principal  officers  used  coats 
of  mail  for  protection.  The  light 
troops  were  armed  with  swords, 
battle-axes,  maces  and  clubs.  Ev- 
ery battalion  had  its  standard, 
w-ith  some  symbol  or  sacred  objedl 
represented  thereon,  generally  the 
emblem  of  the  nome  or  tribe.  The 
soldiers  were  called  out  by  con- 
scription, drilled  to  the  sound  of 
the  trumpet,  and  taught  to  march 
in  measured  time.  In  the  most 
ancient  period  cavalry  were  used 
as  skirmishers,  videttes  and  ex- 
presses. In  attacking  walled  cit- 
ies battering-rams,  besieging-tow- 
ers  and  .scaling-ladders  were  used. 
The  Egyptians,  like  other  ancient 
nations,  treated  their  captives  very- 
cruelly,  putting  them  to  death  or 
reducing  them  to  slavery. 

The    Egyptians    readily    gave 
quarter  when  an  enemy  submitted, 
and  thousands  of  prisoners  were 
often  taken  in  their  military  expe- 
ditions.    If  they  ran  down  an  enem3''s  ship 
they  exerted  themselves  to  rescue  the  men 
on  board  from  the  waves,  and  took  them  to 
their  own  ves.sels  at  the  risk  of  their  own 
lives.     Enemies  who  laid  down  their  weap- 
ons on  land  and  sued  for  mercy  were  usualh' 
spared.     Their   arms   were  bound   together 
by  a  cord  passed  round  them  a  little  above 
the  elbows,  and  they  were  led  from  the  field 
to  the  camp,  usualh-  in  long  strings,  each 
condudled  by  one  Egyptian.    Laggards  were 
urged    forward   by    fear   of    the    bastinado, 
1— 5.-U.  H. 


which  was  freel}-  applied  by  those  in  charge 
of  the  captives.  All  captives  were  consid- 
ered as  belonging  to  the  king,  and  conse- 
(|uenlly  became  his  slaves,  being  employed 
by  him  in  forced  labors  during  the  rest  of 
their  lives:  but  sometimes  the  monarch  re- 
warded individual  captors  by  allowing  them 
to  hold  their  own  prisoners,  who  thus  passed 
into  pri\-ate  ser\'itude. 


ASSAII.T   ox    .\    I-ORT — TKSTUDO   .^ND   SCALIN-G-1.AI)I1i:R. 

The  Egyptians,  in  order  to  ascertain  the 
number  of  slain  among  an  enemy's  army  on 
the  battle-field,  mutilated  them,  cutting  off 
and  carrying  to  the  camji  the  right  hand, 
the  tongue  or  some  other  portion  of  the 
body.  Heaps  of  each  of  these  are  shown 
in  the  sculptures,  which  the  royal  scribes 
are  represented  as  counting  in  the  king's 
presence,  before  registering  them.  Each 
soldier  received  a  reward  upon  showing 
these  proofs  of  his  prowess. 

The  climate  of  the  Nile  valley  is  warm 


70 


ANCIEKT  HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


and  dr}-.  In  Southern  Eg)"pt  the  heat  is 
excessive.  In  Northern  Eg5'pt  several  causes 
combine  to  gi^■e  a  lower  summer  tempera- 
ture. In  the  desert  tracfts  the  air  is  much 
drier  than  in  the  Nile  valle}-  itself,  with 
gi'eater  alternations  of  heat  and  cold.  In 
summer  the  air  is  .sufTocating,  while  in 
winter  the  days  are  cool  and  the  nights 
acftually  cold.  Heavy  rains  and  violent 
thunder-storms  are  frequent  at  this  sea.son. 
At  certain  seasons  green  herbage  and  flow- 
ers cover  the  torrent-beds  after  the  water 
has  flowed  into  the  Nile;  but  the  solar  heat 
and  the  Khanisccn,  or  hot  de.sert  wind, 
wither  the  herbage  and  flowers  at  other  sea- 
.sons. 

The  vegetable  produdlions  of  Egypt  are 
trees,  shrubs,  esculent  plants,  grain,  arti- 
ficial grasses  and  medicinal  plants.  The 
trees  are  the  date-palm,  the  sycamore,  the 
tamari.sk,  the  myxa,  the  acanthus  and  sev- 
eral kinds  of  acacias.  Among  .shrubs  and 
fruit-trees  are  the  fig,  the  pomegranate,  the 
mulberrj-,  the  vine,  the  olive,  the  apricot, 
the  peach,  the  pear,  the  plum,  the  apple, 
the  orange,  the  lemon,  the  banana,  the 
locust-tree,  the  per.sea,  the  castor-oil  plant 
and  the  prickly  pear.  These,  excepting 
the  orange,  lemon,  apricot  and  banana,  are 
believed  to  ha\-e  all  been  producftions  of 
ancient,  as  well  as  of  modem,  Egypt.  The 
esculent  plants  which  grew  wild  were 
the  bj'blus,  or  papyrus,  the  Nymphcva  lo- 
ins and  the  Lotus  arni/ca.  The  papyrus 
plant,  which  was  used  for  writing,  is  not 
now  found  in  Egypt.  The  cultivated  vege- 
tables are  mainly  the  same  as  tho.se  of  other 
countries.  Artificial  grasses  of  ancient 
Egypt  were  clover,  vetches,  lupins  and  the 
gilbdn  of  the  Arabs,  or  the  Lathynis  sativus 
of  Pliny. 

The  wild  animals  indigenous  in  Egypt 
were  the  hippopotamus,  the  crocodile,  the 
lion,  the  hyena,  the  wolf,  the  jackal,  the 
fox,  the  ichneumon,  the  hare,  the  jerboa, 
the  rat,  the  mou.se,  the  shrew-niou.se,  the 
porcupine,  the  hedgehog,  and  perhaps  the 
bear,  the  wild  boar,  the  ibex,  the  gazelle, 
three  kinds  of  antelopes,  the  stag,  the 
wild  sheep,  the  .1/oiiilor  Niloticus,  and  the 


wild  cat.  The  domestic  animals  were  the 
horse,  the  ass,  the  camel,  the  Indian  or 
humped  ox,  the  cow,  the  sheep,  the  goat, 
the  pig,  the  cat  and  the  dog. 

The  birds  of  Egj'pt  are  the  eagle,  the  fal- 
con, the  xEtolian  kite,  the  black  vulture,  the 
bearded  vulture,  the  /  'ultio-  pcrcnoptcriis, 
the  osprey,  the  horned  owl,  the  .screech-owl, 
the  raven,  the  ostrich,  the  ibis,  the  pelican, 
the  vulpanser  or  fox-goose,  the  Nile  duck, 
the  hoopoe,  the  sea-swallow,  the  Egyptian 
kingfisher,  the  quail,  the  oriental  dotterell, 
the  benno,  the  sicsac,  the  swallow,  the  spar- 
row, the  wagtail,  the  crested  plover,  the 
heron  and  other  wading  birds,  the  com- 
mon kite,  the  hawk,  the  common  vulture, 
the  common  owl,  the  white  owl,  the  turtle- 
dove, the  mi.ssel  thrush,  the  common  king- 
fisher, the  lark,  and  the  finch. 

There  were  different  kinds  of  fish  in  the 
Nile;  and  various  reptiles  were  found  in  the 
countni',  such  as  turtles,  iguanas,  geckos  or 
.small  lizards,  the  horned  .snake,  the  asp, 
the  chameleon,  and  others.  The  most  re- 
markable insedls  are  the  .scorpion,  the  locust 
and  the  solpuga  spider. 

Among  minerals  in  Egypt  are  many  ex- 
cellent kinds  of  stone,  such  as  magnesian 
limestone,  sandstone,  porphyry,  alabaster, 
granite  and  syenite.  The  inexhaustible 
supply  of  stone  made  that  gift  of  nature  the 
great  building  material  of  Egypt.  The  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  stone  were  conveyed  from 
one  end  of  Egypt  to  the  other  by  being 
floated  on  rafts  along  the  Nile.  It  was  easy 
to  float  down  the  river  the  granite  and  sye- 
nite of  the  far  South  of  Egypt  to  Thebes, 
Memphis,  and  the  cities  of  the  Delta. 
There  were  few  metals  in  Eg>pt.  Among 
the.se  were  gold,  silver,  copper,  iron  and  lead. 
Other  mineral  productions  were  natron,  salt, 
.sulphur,  petroleum,  chalcedonies,  cameli- 
ans,  ja.spers,  green  breccia,  emeralds,  agate, 
rock-cry.stal,  .serpentine,  compact  felspar, 
steatite,  honiblende,  basanite,  actinolite  and 
the  sulphate  of  barytes. 

The  fertilizing  of  the  .soil  by  the  animal 
inundation  of  the  Nile,  and  the  irrigation  of 
the  countr>'  by  means  of  numerous  canals, 
contributed  to  make  Egypt  the  great  gran- 


c7\7/j/.rnoA\ 


71 


ar>-  of  antiquity,  from  which  other  nations 
drew  their  supplies  in  times  of  famine. 
The  naturally  fertile  soil  and  the  sponta- 
neous growth  of  the  date-palm  furnished 
the  people  with  cheap  and  abundant  food, 
and  agriculture  received  much  attention. 

The  rapid  increase  and  density  of  the 
Egyptian  population,  which,  as  we  have 
already  said,  was  about  seven  millions, 
crowded  in  the  narrow  valley  of  the  Nile, 
ouh'  seven  miles  in  width,  was  due  to  the 
abundance  and  cheapness  of  food  and  the 
readiness  with  which  it  could  be  obtained. 


trodden  in  bj'  .sheep,  goats  or  pigs,  and  then 
simply  awaited  the  har\-est.  Plows,  of  a 
simple  construction,  and  hoes  were  used  in 
preparing  the  ground  in  other  portions  of 
the  country.  The  plows  were  drawn  by  two 
oxen  or  two  cows,  yoked  to  it  by  the  shoul- 
ders or  by  the  horns.  vSometimes  a  single 
plowman  guided  the  plow  by  holding  one 
handle  in  his  left  hand,  and  carrj-ing  a  whip 
in  his  right;  but  generally  there  were  two 
plowmen,  one  holding  the  two  handles,  and 
the  other  driving  the  animals  with  tlie  whip. 
In  light  and  loose  soils  the  hoe  was  used 


Vilillcf 


KORKIOX    CAPTIVKS   M.\KING    BRICK.S    .Vt   THKllKS. 


This  facfl  accounts  for  the  ease  with  which 
great  public  works  like  the  Pyramids,  that 
were  useless,  could  be  built;  as  the  mon- 
archs  were  thus  enabled  to  employ  the  labor 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men,  who  were 
not  required  by  necessity  to  labor  in  any 
other  way. 

The  non-interference  of  the  government 
with  agriculture  was  an  advantage.  The 
grain  was  sowed  when  the  inundation  had 
disappeared.  In  some  parts  of  EgN'pt  the 
husbandman  only  scattered  the  seed  upon 
the  rich    Nile  deposit   and  caused  it  to  be 


instead  of  the  plow.  The  hoes  and  plows 
were  of  wood.  The  grain  cultivated  was 
wheat,  barley,  and  what  Herodotus  called 
zea  or  olyra,  probably  the  modem  doom. 
The  wheat  and  barley  were  used  by  the  rich, 
and  the  doora  by  the  poor.  The  wheat  was 
cut  with  a  toothed  sickle,  a  little  below  the 
ear,  and  put  in  baskets  or  bound  in  sheaves. 
The  filled  baskets  were  carried  in  b}'  men  or 
donkeys  to  the  threshing-floor,  and  there 
emptied  on  a  heap.  Sometimes  the  corn  was 
conveyed  from  the  harvest-field  to  the  gran- 
ary or  storehouse,  and  kept  there  a  month. 


72 


ANCIENT   ins  TOR  Y.—EG  YPT. 


Threshing  was  done  by  means  of  cattle, 
which  were  driven  round  and  round  the 
threshing-floor,  while  a  laborer,  with  a  pitch- 
fork, threw  the  unthreshed  ears  into  their 
path.  The  threshed  corn  was  at  once  win- 
nowed, by  being  tossed  into  the  air  with 
shovels,  in  a  place  where  the  draught  of  air 
would  blow  off  the  chaif  as  the  corn  fell. 
After  this  operation  the  cleansed  grain  was 
carried  in  sacks  to  the  granarj',  and  there 
stored  until  used. 

In  a.  harvest  song,  discovered  by  Chani- 
pollion  at  lulethyias,  the  oxen  are  repre- 
.sented  as  mainly  threshing  for  thcvisclvcs. 
The  following  is  the  song  in  hieroglyphics, 
with  its  translation  into  English: 


0 


III        I  I  I     1    Lk         A 


y^^A^'v^« 


//III  III 


/vvww\ 

I   I   I 


■  11 


•      I    «    »^  III  ^ 

SONG   OK   THRESHERS   TO   OXEN. 

Translated  as  To/lows: 
Tbresb  for  yourselves, 
Thresh  for  yourselves, 

O  Oxen!  ' 
Thresh  for  yourselves, 
Thresh  for  yourselves. 
Measures  for  yourselves, 
Mea.sures  for  your  masters. 

The  cultivation  of  barley  was  similar  to 
that  of  wheat,  and  barley  bread  was  in 
great  demand.  Beer  was  also  brewed  from 
the  grain.  The  doora  was  pulled  up  by  the 
roots,  and  the  earth  was  then  shaken  off  by 
the  hand.  It  was  bound  in  sheaves  and 
carried  to  a  storehouse;  and  after  it  was  dry 
it  was  unbound  and  drawn  by  the  hand 
through  an  instrument,  armed  at  one  end 
with  a  set  of  metal  spikes,  which  .separated 
the  heads  from  the  straw.  These  were,  per- 
haps, then    also   threshed   and    winnowed. 


Beans,  peas  and  lentils  were  al.so  raised. 
Artificial  grasses,  such  as  clover,  lupins 
and  vetches,  were  grown  to  furnish  pro- 
vender for  the  cattle  during  the  inundation. 
Flax  was  raised  in  great  abundance  for  the 
linen  out  of  which  garments  were  made. 
Cotton,  indigo,  safflower,  sesame,  the  ca.stor- 
oil  plant,  and  various  medicinal  herbs  were 
also  culti\-ated.  Esculent  vegetables,  such 
as  garlic,  onions,  leeks,  endive,  radishes, 
melons,  cucumbers,  lettuces,  etc.,  were  like- 
wise raised  in  considerable  quantities,  and 
formed  a  large  element  in  the  food  of  the 
people.  The  raising  and  harvesting  of 
the.se  different  crops  employed  the  agricul- 
tural class  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year. 
In  addition  to  the  yearl)-  overflow  of  the 
Nile,  the  countn,-  was  fertilized  by  irrigation 
in  the  form  of  a  .system  of  canals,  with  em- 
bankments, .sluices  and  flood-gates,  by 
which  the  overflow  was  retained  in  vast 
reser\'oirs,  and  thus  utilized.  This  system 
of  irrigation  was  established  at  an  early 
date,  and  was  maintained  with  the  greatest 
care  by  the  government.  In  the  distridl  of 
the  Faioom,  a  natural  depression  in  the 
Libyan  de.sert,  eight  or  ten  miles  from  the 
Xile  valley,  a  canal  was  cut  from  the  Nile, 
thus  filling  this  depression  with  water,  and 
forming  an  artificial  lake,  known  as  the 
"Lake  Mceris."  From  this  innnense  reser- 
voir, canals  were  cut  in  all  directions  to 
irrigate  the  surrounding  desert.  In  this 
region,  by  this  system  of  irrigation,  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  olive  was  rendered  possible. 
In  the  edge  of  the  Nile  valley,  toward  the 
desert  of  Ildi^rr,  where  the  soil  was  light  and 
composed  of  sand  mixed  with  gravel,  the 
vine  was  cultivated  all  the  way  from  Thebes 
to  Memphis.  It  was  also  grown  in  the 
Faioom,  and  in  the  western  part  of  the 
Delta.  The  fruit,  after  being  gathered,  was 
carried  in  ba.skets  to  the  .storehou.se,  where 
the  juice  was  extra(5led  by  treading  or 
squeezing  in  a  bag.  After  fermentation,  the 
wine  was  stored  away  in  va.ses  or  amphorae 
of  an  elegant  shape,  closed  with  a  stopper 
and  then  hermetically  sealed  with  moist 
clay,  pitch,  gypsum  or  other  substance. 
In  the  large  estates  of  the  rich  land-own- 


ciiirrzATroN. 


73 


ers  the  herdsmen  were  under  the  supervision 
of  overseers.  The  peasant  who  cultivated 
the  land  on  which  the  flocks  and  herds  fed 
was  resp>onsible  for  their  proper  sujijiort  and 
for  the  exacl  account  of  the  amount  of  food 
which  they  consumed.  Some  persons  were 
wholly  employed  in  taking  care  of  the  sick 
animals,  which  were  kept  at  home  in  the 
farm-yard.  The  overseer  of  the  shepherds 
attended,  at  stated  periods,  to  give  a  report 
to  the  scribes  connected  with  the  estate,  by 
whom  it  was  submitted  to  the  steward,  who 
was  accountable  to  his  employer  for  this 
and  all  his  other  possessions.  The  paintings 
represent  the  head  shepherd  rendering  his 
account,  and  behind  him  we  see  the  flocks 
assigned  to  his  charge,  con.sisting  of  the 
sheep,  goats  and  wild  animals  belonging  to 
the  person  in  the  tomb.  In  one  painting 
the  expres.sive  attitude  of  this  man,  with 
his  hand  at  his  mouth,  is  imagined  to  con- 
vey the  idea  of  his  effort  to  remember  the 
numbers  which  he  is  giving,  from  memory, 
to  the  scribes.  In  another  painting  the 
numbers  are  written  over  the  animals.  The 
oxen  are  numbered  eight  hundred  and 
thirty-four,  the  cows  two  hundred  and 
twenty,  the  goats  three  thousand  two  hun- 
dred and  thirty-four,  the  asses  seven  hun- 
dred and  sixty,  and  the  .sheep  nine  hundred 
and  seventy-four.  These  are  followed  by  a 
man  carrying  the  young  lambs  in  baskets 
slung  upon  a  pole.  The  .steward,  in  a  lean- 
ing posture  upon  his  staff,  and  accompanied 
by  his  dog,  stands  on  one  side;  while  the 
scribes,  writing  out  their  statement,  occupy 
the  other  side.  Another  painting  shows  us 
men  bringing  baskets  of  eggs,  flocks  of 
geese,  and  baskets  full  of  goslings.  An 
Egyptian  ' ' Goo.se  Gibbie ' '  is  represented  as 
making  obei.sance  to  his  master.  In  still 
another  painting  we  see  persons  feeding  sick 
oxen,  goats  and  geese.  The  ancient  Egyp- 
tians carried  the  art  of  curing  disea.ses  in  all 
kinds  of  animals  to  great  perfection;  and 
the  testimony  of  ancient  writers  and  paint- 
ings is  sustained  h\  a  discover>'  of  Cuvier, 
who  found  the  left  shoulder  of  a  mummied 
ibis  fradlured  and  reunited,  thus  showing 
that  human  art  inter\^ened  in  this  ca.se. 


The  ancient  Egyptians  of  everj-  class  de- 
lighted in  field-sports,  and  the  peasants  con- 
sidered it  a  duty,  no  le.ss  than  amu.sement, 
to  hunt  and  kill  the  hyena  and  other  wild 
animals  which  annoyed  them.  The  paint- 
ings show  us  numerous  hunting  scenes  and 
various  devices  for  catching  birds  and  beasts. 
The  lu-ena  is  u.sually  represented  as  caught 
in  a  trap.  Wild  oxen  were  caught  by  a 
noose  or  lasso,  in  very  much  the  same  man- 
ner as  the  vSouth  Americans  catch  horses 
and  cattle,  thcmgh  the  Egyptians  are  not 
represented  as  riding  on  honseback  when 
the)-  u.sed  it.  The  introduction  of  a  bush 
in  one  painting,  just  behind  the  man  throw- 
ing the  las.so,  would  seem  to  imply  that  the 
huntsman  was  concealed.  Other  wild  ani- 
mals hunted  were  the  hippopotamus,  the 
jackal,  the  fox,  the  crocodile,  the  porcupine, 
the  gazelle,  the  ibex,  the  hare,  the  antelope, 
and  even  the  ostrich.  Wild  cattle  were  also 
hunted.  Lions,  upon  the  borders  of  Egypt, 
were  hunted  by  a  few  of  the  kings,  but  there 
is  only  one  representation  of  a  roj'al  lion 
hunt.  Sometimes  lions  were  tamed,  and 
were  used  in  the  chase  of  other  animals,  ac- 
cording to  a  single  painting.  One  king  is 
represented  as  having  "hunted  a  hundred 
and  twenty  elephants  on  account  of  their 
tu.sks."  Fishing  and  fowling  were  also  fa- 
vorite sports  among  the  Egyptians.  Hounds 
were  likewise  used  in  pursuing  game. 

All  the  departments  of  agriculture,  farm- 
ing, breeding  cattle,  etc.,  are  illustrated  in 
the  paintings  with  wonderful  accuracy-  and 
detail.  We  observe  oxen  lying  on  the 
ground,  with  legs  pinioned,  while  herdsmen 
are  branding  marks  upon  them  with  hot 
irons,  and  other  men  are  heating  irons  in  the 
fire.  The  paintings  give  us  full  accounts  of 
the  king's  kine,  which  are  generally  copied 
after  the  fattest  specimens.  One  of  these 
represents  the  Pharaoh  as  himself  a  toler- 
ably exten.sive  grazier,  the  king's  ox  being 
marked  eighty-six.  Another  illustrates  a 
regular  cattle-show;  another  the  actual  oper- 
ation of  the  veterinarv-  art,  cattle  doctors 
being  exhibited  as  performing  operations 
upon  sick  oxen,  bulls,  deer,  goats  and  geese. 
The  hieroglyphic  denoting   a    physician  is 


74 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.—EGYPT. 


> 
w 


•n 

O 

Q 

P 

« 

O 

« 


2; 

o 

H 
-J 

W 

W 


CIVILIZATION. 


75 


the  fowl  whose  cr\'  is  ' '  Quack  !  quack  ! ' ' 
Egyptian  beasts  of  burden  were  asses, 
cows  and  oxen.  Horses  were  used  for 
riding,  for  drawing  curricles  and  chariots, 
mainly  b}-  men  of  the  upper  classes,  and  for 
drawing  the  plow.  Multitudes  were  re- 
quired for  the  war-chariots  and  for  the  cav- 
alry service.  A  brisk  trade  in  horses  was 
carried  on  with  Syria  and  Palestine,  where 
they  were  in  great  demand  and  commanded 
high  prices.  The  horses  of  ancient  Egypt  \ 
were  kept  con.stantly  in  stables,  fed  on 
straw  and  barley,  and  were  not  allowed  to 
graze  in  the  fields.  The  larger  land-owners 
also  possessed  wild  animals,  such  as  wild 
goats,  gazelles  and  oryxes;  and  also  wild 
fowl,  such  as  the  stork,  the  \-ulpanser  and 
others.  Egyptian  farmers  also  bred  large 
numbers  of  sheep,  goats  and  pigs. 

Egypt  has  been  an  objecfl  of  interest  to 
mankind  in  every  age,  as  the  birth-place  of 
civilization,  art  and  science.  In  this  nar- 
row strip  of  country,  "the  Gift  of  the  Nile," 
only  seven  miles  wide  and  five  hundred  and 
twent>-six  miles  long,  were  seven  million 
inhabitants.  The  Nile  valley  is  studded 
with  the  ruins  of  ancient  cities.  Memphis, 
the  chief  citj-  of  Middle  Egypt,  or  the  Hep- 
tanomis,  so  called  from  its  seven  nomes,  was 
situated  about  twelve  miles  south  of  the  apex 
of  the  Delta,  and  as  we  have  said,  was 
founded  by  Menes,  the  first  Egyptian  king. 
In  the  vicinity  of  Memphis  are  the  most 
splendid  of  the  pyramids,  which  extend  for 
seventy  miles  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Nile, 
and  among  which  are  the  famous  Pyramids 
of  Ghizeh,  already  described.  In  this  vi- 
cinity is  also  the  Great  Sphinx,  or  woman- 
headed  lion,  one  hundred  and  forty-six  feet 
long  and  thirty-six  feet  wide  across  the 
shoulders.  Here  are  also  the  ruins  of  the 
famous  Labyrinth,  and  miles  on  miles  of 
rock-hewn  temples.  The  magnificent  and 
stately  Thebes,  the  hundred-gated  city  of 
Upper  Egypt,  or  the  Thebais,  is  said  to  have 
extended  over  twenty-three  miles.  On  its  site 
are  the  villages  of  Kaniak  and  Euxor, 
where  the  ruins  of  magnificent  and  spacious 
temples,  splendid  palaces,  colossal  .statues, 
avenues  of  obelisks  and  lines  of  .sphinxes, 


tombs  of  kings  hewn  in  the  .solid  rock, 
subterranean  catacombs  and  the  gigantic 
statue  of  Memnon,  still  bear  witness  to  the 
immense  size  and  splendor  of  this  great  and 
celebrated  cit)-,  who.se  ruins  extend  for  seven 
miles  along  both  banks  of  the  Nile. 

The  ancient  Egyptians  had  a  wonderful 
building  instinct,  and  architedture  was  the 
greatest  of  all  their  arts.  The  distinguish- 
ing features  were  ma.ssiveness  and  grandeur, 
in  which  they  have  never  been  surpas.sed. 
This  great  people  delighted  in  pyramids, 
.sphinxes,  obelisks  and  stupendous  palaces 
and  temples,  with  massive  columns  and  .spa- 
cious halls  of  solemn  and  gloomy  grandeur, 
in  which  our  largest  cathedrals  could  stand, 
adorned  with  elaborately-.sculptured  colossal 
statues,  and  connedled  with  which  were  ave- 
nues of  .sphinxes  and  lines  of  obelisks. 
Their  pyramids  are  the  oldest,  as  well  as 
the  largest  and  most  wonderful  of  human 
works  }'et  remaining,  and  the  beauty  of  their 
masonry,  Wilkinson  declares,  has  never 
been  surpassed.  An  obelisk  of  a  single 
stone  now  standing  in  Egypt  weighs  three 
hundred  tons,  and  a  colo.ssus  of  Rameses  the 
Great  nearly  nine  hundred  tons;  and  Herod- 
otus describes  a  monolithic  temple  weigh- 
ing fi\'e  thousand  tons,  which  was  carried 
hundreds  of  miles  on  sledges,  as  were  also 
the  huge  blocks  of  stone,  .sometimes  weigh- 
ing sixteen  thousand  tons  each,  with  which 
the  pyramids  were  built.  In  one  instance 
two  thousand  men  were  employed  three 
years  in  conveying  a  single  stone  from  the 
quarry  to  the  strudlure  in  which  it  was  to 
be  placed.  There  is  a  roof  of  a  doorway  at 
K&rnak  covered  with  sandstone  blocks  forty 
feet  long.  Sculpture  and  bas-reliefs  thirty- 
five  or  forty  centuries  old,  in  which  the 
granite  is  cut  with  exquisite  delicacy,  are 
yet  to  be  seen  throughout  this  famous  land. 
The  pyramids  were  all  built  on  stridlly 
scientific  and  mathematical  principles. 

The  obelisks,  so  called  on  account  of 
their  peculiar  shape,  were  tall  and  slender 
monoliths  eredled  at  the  gateways  of  tem- 
ples, one  standing  on  each  side.  From  the 
quarries  of  Syene  they  were  floated  down  the 
Nile  on  rafts   during  an   annual   overflow. 


76 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.  — ECVrT. 


They  were  formed  in  accordance  with  a  cer- 
tain rule  of  proportion,  and  were  from  twenty 
to  one  hundred  and  tweuty-three  feet  high. 


was  taken  to  Paris  in  1833  and  erecfted  in 
the  Place  de  la  Concorde.  Several  others 
had    previously    been   removed    to    Rome. 


I'  .iiiiiiiiiiiuaiiiiii 

The  names  and  titles  of  the  kings  who 
ere<5ted  them  were  recorded  in  hieroglyphic 
carv'ings  on  the  sides.     An  obelisk  at  Luxor 


Two    faniou  -ii^ks,  after    standing    for 

eighteen  centuries  at  the  gate  of  the  temple 
of  the  sun  at    Heliopolis,  where  they  had 


cr\-n.i/..\r!ON. 


been  erected  by  King  Thothnies  III.,  were 
removed  to  Alexandria  by  the  Romans  just 
after  tlieir  con(|nest  of  Kg>pt,  in  the  time  of 
Augustus  CiEsar.  These  were  known  at 
Alexandria  as  Cleopatra's  Needles,  and  one 


was  transported  to  London  a  few  years  ago. 
The  other  was  shortly  after  transported  to 
New  York,  and  is  now  one  of  the  objects  of 
interest  greeting  the  eye  of  the  beholder  in 
Central  Park. 


RUINS    or    TlCMl'Uii 


K.\RN.\K. 


78 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y. — EG  YPT. 


Egypt,  renowned  for  its  discoveries  in  art 
and  science,  was  the  ancient  world's  univer- 
sity, where  Moses,  Lycurgus  and  Solon, 
Pythagoras  and  Plato,  Herodotus  and  Di- 
odorus — lawgivers,  philosophers  and  his- 
torians— were  students.  The  ancient  Egyp- 
tians had  made  considerable  progress  in  the 
sciences,  particularly  astronomy,  geometry, 
arithmetic,  cheniistrj-,  medicine  and  an- 
atom}-.  Their  knowledge  of  astronomy  is 
proven  by  the  accuracy  with  which  they 
calculated  solar  and  lunar  eclipses;  by  their 
mode  of  reckoning  time  and  their  knowledge 
of  the  length  of  the  year  as  being  three 
hundred  and  sixty-five  days;  by  their  knowl- 
edge of  the  spherical  shape  of  the  earth;  and 
by  their  abilitj'  to  compute  latitude  and  lon- 
gitude, as  demonstrated  by  the  facft  that  the 
tomb  of  Cheops,  Suphis,  or  Khufu,  the  king 
who  built  the  largest  of  the  three  great  Pyr- 
amids of  Ghizeh,  is  located  exadlly  on  the 
30th  parallel  of  north  latitude. 

The  ancient  Egyptians  had  attained  great 
skill  in  many  of  the  finer  mechanical  arts, 
such  as  potter)-,  the  manufacture  of  glass 
and  porcelain,  dyeing  and  the  making  of 
linen  and  cotton  goods.  They  likewise  ex- 
celled in  the  polishing  and  engraving  of 
precious  stones,  and  in  metallurg)-.  Mining 
was  one  of  their  industries.  Their  walls 
and  ceilings  were  painted  in  beautiful  pat- 
terns, which  moderns  yet  imitate;  and  in 
the  producflion  of  useful  and  ornamental 
articles  the^^  ha\-e  never  befen  surpassed, 
either  in  ancient  or  modern  times. 

The  language  of  the  ancient  Egyptians 
was  related  to  the  languages  of  the  Semitic 
nations,  but  differed  from  them  in  many 
particulars.  There  were  different  diale(5ts 
in  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt. 

The  Egj'ptians  pracfticed  the  art  of  writing 
far  more  extensively  than  any  other  ancient 
people.  The  pyramids  and  monuments, 
even  to  the  most  remote  antiquity,  bear  in- 
scriptions, and  it  was  the  custom  to  mark 
every  article  of  use  or  ornament.  There 
were  three  kinds  of  writing  in  use.  For 
monumental  inscriptions  hieroglj-phics  were 
used.  For  documents  the  writing  was  exe- 
cuted on  leaves   of  the  papyrus  plant,  from 


which  our  word  paper  is  derived.  The 
third  kind  of  writing  was  the  demotic,  that 
of  the  common  people,  so  called  from  demos, 
the  people.  The  writing  was  executed  with 
a  reed  pen.  The  hierogljphics  were  traced 
in  black,  but  commenced  in  red,  and  the 
sculptured  hieroglj-phs  were  also  embellished 
with  colors.  The  hieroglyphic  signs  are 
pidtorial,  and  are  of  four  kinds — representa- 
tive, figurative,  determinative  and  phonetic. 
Much  of  this  ancient  literature  has  come 
down  to  us  in  a  fragmentary  and  di.scon- 
ne(5led  form.  Remnants  of  papyrus  man- 
uscripts of  the  most  ancient  Theban  dy- 
nasties— about  four  thousand  j^ears  old — 
are  still  in  existence.  The  professional 
scribes  were  from  the  priestly  class. 

The  di.scover>'  of  the  famous  Roseffa  Stone, 
during  Bonaparte's  Egyptian  campaign,  in 
1798,  led  to  the  deciphering  of  the  hiero- 
glyphic inscriptions  on  the  monuments, 
which  has  been  the  means  of  throwing  a  flood 
of  new  light  upon  the  history  of  ancient 
Egypt.  All  three  forms  of  hieroglyphic 
writing  were  unknown  to  the  Greeks,  to 
whom  the  monumental  in,scriptions  were  in- 
terpreted b)'  the  Egyptian  priests.  The 
key  to  these  writings  was  lost,  thus  conceal- 
ing the  treasures  of  Eg>ptian  learning  from 
the  civilized  world  for  centuries.  The  cop- 
ies of  the  three  kinds  of  inscriptions  on  the 
Ro.setta  Stone — the  hieroglyphic,  the  de- 
motic and  the  Greek — given  to  European 
scholars,  were  the  means  of  opening  this 
long-sealed  library-  on  stones  and  papyri.  In 
1815  Dr.  Young,  the  English  Egyptologist, 
discovered  the  key  to  the  texts,  and  the 
distinguished  French  Egyptologist,  Cham- 
pollion,  made  a  successful  application  of  the 
newly-discovered  key.  The  Rosetta  Stone 
is  now  in  the  British  Museum. 

The  ancient  Egyptians  surpassed  all  othe: 
nations  in  their  love  for  recording  all  human 
adlions.  They  preserved  in  writing,  on 
papyrus,  a  record  of  all  the  details  of  private 
life  with  surprising  zeal,  method  and  regu- 
laritj-.  Ever}^  >'ear,  month,  week  and  day 
had  its  record  of  transacftions.  This  incli- 
nation fully  accounts  for  Egypt  being  the 
monumental  land.     No  other  human  records 


CIVILIZATION. 


79 


— whether  of  Chaldnen,  India  or  China — go 
as  far  back  into  remote  antiijuity  as  do  those 
of  Egypt.  Bunsen  says:  "The  genuine 
EgA'ptian  writing  is  fully  as  old  as  Menes, 
the  founder  of  the  Old  Knipire,  perhaps 
three  thousand  years  before  Christ."  Lep- 
sius  saw  the  hieroglyph  of  the  reed  and  ink- 
stand on  the  monuments  of  the  Fourth 
Dynasty.  Herodotus  remarked:  "No Egyp- 
tian omits  taking  accurate  note  of  extraor- 
dinarj-  and  striking  events."  Everything 
was  recorded.  Scribes  are  everj'where  seen 
on  the  monuments,  taking  accounts  of  the 
products  of  the  farms,  going  into  the  most 
minute  details,  even  so  far  as  to  giving 
account  of  ever\-  single  egg  and 
chicken.  Bunsen  further  says:  "In 
spite  of  the  ravages  of  time,  and 
though  systematic  excavation  has 
scarcely  yet  commenced,  we  possess 
chronological  records  of  a  date  prior 
to  any  period  of  which  manuscripts 
are  preser\-ed,  or  the  art  of  writing 
existed  in  any  other  quarter. ' ' 

It  is  owing  to  their  fondness  for  recording  ' 
everjthing,  both  in  pictures  and  in  three 
kinds  of  writing ;  also  to  their  fondness  for 
building  and  excavating  temples  and  tombs 
in  imperishable  granite  ;  and  lastly,  to  the 
drj'ness  of  the  air  which  has  preserved  for  us 
these  paintings,  and  to  the  sand  which  has 
buried  the  monuments,  thus  preventing  their 
destruction — it  is  owing  to  all  these  circum- 
stances that  we  have  so  wonderfully  pre- 
ser\-ed,  for  forty-five  centuries,  the  account 
of  the  everyday  life,  thoughts  and  religious 
belief  of  this  renowned  ancient  people. 

The  most  ancient  mural  paintings  reveal 
a  state  of  the  arts  of  civilization  so  perfedl 
as  to  excite  the  wonder  of  archteologists, 
who  therefore  know  how  few  new  things 
there  are  under  the  sun.  We  find  houses 
with  doors,  windows  and  verandas,  likewise 
barns  for  grain,  vineyards,  gardens,  fruit 
trees,  etc.  We  also  see  pictures  of  marching 
troops,  armed  with  spears  and  shields,  bows, 
slings,  daggers,  axes,  maces  and  the  boome- 
rang. We  also  notice  coats  of  mail,  stand- 
ards, war-chariots,  and  the  assault  on  forts 
by  means  of  scaling-ladders. 


The  ancient  Egyptian  tombs  likewise  ex- 
hibit scenes  of  domestic  life  and  customs 
similar  to  tho.se  of  our  own  times.  We 
ob.serve  monkeys  trained  to  gather  fruit 
from  the  trees  in  an  orchard,  houses  fur- 
nished with  a  great  variety  of  chairs,  tables, 
ottomans,  carjjets,  couches,  as  elegant  and 
elaborate  as  any  u.sed  at  the  present  day. 
There  are  likewise  seen  comic  pictures  of 
parties,  where  ladies  and  gentlemen  are 
sometimes  represented  as  being  the  worse 
for  wine;  of  dances,  where  ballet-girls  in 
short  dresses  perform  pirouettes  of  the  mod- 
em kind;  of  exercises  in  wrestling,  games 
of  ball,  games  of  chance  like  chess  or  check- 


EGVPTIAN   MKN   CARRIED   HOME    KROM   A    DRINKING  P.ARTV. 

ers;  of  throwing  knives  at  a  mark;  of  the 
modem  thimble-rig,  wooden  dolls  for  chil- 
dren, curiously-carved  wooden  boxes,  dice 
and  toy-balls.  We  have  likewise  presented 
to  our  view  men  and  women  playing  on 
harps,  flutes,  pipes,  cymbals,  trumpets, 
drums,  guitars  and  tambourines.  We  find 
glass  to  have  been  in  general  use  by  this 
great  people  nearly  four  thousand  years 
ago,  as  early  as  the  reign  of  Usurtasen  I., 
and  we  can  see  pictures  of  glass-blowing 
and  glass  bottles  as  far  back  as  the  Fourth 
Dynasty.  The  most  skillful  Venetian  glass- 
workers  can  not  rival  some  of  the  old 
Egj'ptian  glass-work;  as  the  Eg^'ptians 
could  combine  all  colors  in  one  cup,  place 
gold  between  two  surfaces  of  glass,  and 
finish  in  glass  details  of  feathers,  etc., 
which  can  not  be  distinguished  without  the 
use  of  the  microscof)e.  This  last  fadl  dem- 
onstrates that  they  must  have  understood 
the  use  of  the  magnifying-glass.  The  Egyp- 
tians likewise  imitated  with  success  the  col- 
ors of  precious  stones,  and  were  even  able  to 
make  statues  thirteen  feet  high,  closely  re- 
sembling an  emerald.     They  made  mosaics 


8o 


'ANCIENT   HISrORY.— EGYPT. 


in  glass  of  colors  of  wonderful  brilliancy. 
They  were  able  to  cut  glass  in  the  most 
ancient  periods.  Chine.se  bottles  have  also 
been  found  in  previousl5--unopened  tombs 
of  the  Eighteenth  Dynasty,  .showing  that 
there  must  ha\-e  been  commercial  intercourse 
as  far  back  as  that  period.  The  Egyptians 
could  spin  and  weave  and  color  cloth,  and 
understood  the  use  of  mordants,  as  in  mod- 
ern calico  printing.  Pliny  described  this 
art  as  practiced  in  Egypt. 

The  art  of  making  writing-paper  from  the 
papyrus,  or  paper-plant,  is  as  ancient  as  the 
Pyramids.  The  Egyptians  tanned  leather 
and  made  shoes :  and  the  shoemakers  are 
represented  as  working  on  their  benches 
preci-sely  as  do  our  own.  Their  carpenters 
u.sed  axes,  saws,  chisels,  drills,  planes,  nders, 
plummets,  squares,  hammers,  nails,  and 
hones  for  shai-pening.  They  likewise  knew 
the  u.se  of  glue  in  cabinet-making,  and  there 
are  paintings  in  veneering,  in  which  a  piece 
of  thin,  dark  wood  is  fastened  by  glue  to  a 
coarser  piece  of  light  wood.  Their  boats 
were  propelled  by  sails  on  yards  and  masts, 
as  well  as  by  oars.  They  used  the  blow- 
pipe in  making  gold  chains  and  other  orna- 
ments. They  had  rings  of  gold  and  silver 
for  monej',  and  weighed  it  in  carefully-con- 
structed scales.  Their  hieroglyphics  are 
carved  on  the  hardest  granite  so  delicately 
and  accurately  as  to  indicate  the  use  of  me- 
tallic cutting  instruments  harder  than  our 
best  steel.  The  siphon  was  known  to  these 
people  as  earh-  as  the  fifteenth  centun,-  before 
Christ.  The  wig  was  worn  by  all  the  higher 
classes,  who  constantly  shaved  their  heads, 
as  well  as  their  chins,  and  frequently  wore 
false  beards.  In  the  tombs  are  found  san- 
dals, shoes  and  low  boots,  .some  of  them 
ver}-  elegant.  Loose  robes,  ear-rings,  finger- 
rings,  bracelets,  armlets,  anklets  and  gold 
necklaces  were  worn  by  women.  Vases  for 
ointment,  mirrors,  combs,  needles,  etc.,  are 
fomid  in  the  toml)s.  These  people  al.so  had 
their  dodlors  and  drugs.  The  prevalence  of 
the  pa.ssport  system  is  also  .shown  by  the 
careful  descriptions  of  the  person  contained 
in  their  deeds,  in  precisely  the  same  style  as 
tho.se  required  by  travelers  in  Europe.     The 


description  of  Egyptian  customs  and  man- 
ners here  given  is  but  a  small  part  of  that 
revealed  to  us  in  painting  or  .sculpture  in  the 
tombs,  or  upon  the  walls  of  Thebes  or  Beni- 
Ha.ssan. 

At  their  feasts,  which  were  numerous 
among  the  rich,  the  host  and  hostess  pre- 
sided. The  seats  were  single  or  double 
chairs,  but  numbers  sat  on  the  ground.  The 
servants  decked  the  guests  with  lotus  flow- 
ers, and  placed  meat,  cakes,  fruits  and 
other  articles  of  food  on  the  small  tables  in 
front  of  them.  Hired  musicians  and  dancers 
entertained  the  company.  Their  games 
were  something  like  our  chess  or  checkers. 
The  rich  rode  in  chariots,  or  in  heavy  car- 
riages drawn  by  oxen.  Women  received 
more  respectful  treatment  and  enjoyed  more 
freedom  in  Egypt  than  in  any  of  the  Asi- 
atic nations. 

Games  of  ball  were  played  by  females,  as 
well  as  by  males,  and  one  pidlure  shows  us 
that  the  loser  was  obliged  to  allow  the  win- 
ner to  ride  on  her  back. 

Egyptian  shops  furnished  many  curious 
scenes.  Poulterers  suspended  gee.se  and 
other  fowls  from  a  pole  in  front  of  the  shop, 
which  also  supported  an  awning  to  .shade 
them  from  the  sun.  Man}-  of  the  shops  re- 
semliled  our  stalls,  being  open  in  front,  with 
the  goods  set  on  the  shelves  or  hanging 
from  the  inner  wall;  a  custom  still  prevail- 
ing in  the  East.  In  the  Egyptian  kitchens 
were  likewise  exhibited  singular  scenes, 
among  which  we  find  representations  of  a 
cook  roasting  a  goo.se.  He  holds  the  spit, 
with  one  hand,  and  blows  the  fire  with  a  fan 
in  the  other.  Another  person  is  seen  cutting 
up  joints  of  meat  and  putting  them  into  the 
pot,  which  is  boiling  close  at  hand ;  while 
other  joints  of  meat  are  lying  on  the  table. 

Egyptian  artists  and  .scribes  put  their  reed 
pens  behind  their  ears,  when  examining  the 
effe(5l  of  the  painting  or  listening  to  a  per- 
.son  on  business,  as  in  a  modern  counting 
room.  The  paintings  in  some  instances  rep- 
resent the  scribe  at  work  with  a  spare  j-yen 
behind  his  ear,  his  tablet  upon  his  knee,  and 
his  writing-case  and  inkstand  on  the  table 
in  front  of  him. 


CIVILIZATION. 


8i 


The  dress  of  tlie  highest  class  consisted  of  the  slicitti,  a  short  linen  or  woolen  garment, 
folded  or  fluted,  and  worn  around  the  loins,  being  fastened  with  a  girdle.  A  fine  linen  robe, 
reaching  to  the  feet,  was  worn  over  this,  being  provided  with  long  sleeves  reaching  to  the 
elbows.     A  second  girdle  fastened  the  outer  robe  to  the  waist.     The  arms  and  lower  parts 


Kc;VPTI.\N    GUKST.S   TO    WHO.M    WINi:,    oil.   .\.N1)    r..\RI,.\Nl)S    ARli.    BROl'GHT. 

of  the  legs  were  left  bare.  Sandals  or  shoes  of  leather,  or  of  jiahn-leaves  or  papyrus  stalks, 
were  worn  by  the  rich  of  both  sexes.  The  Egyptian  lords  wore  ornaments,  such  as  collars 
of  beads  or  gold  chains  round  their  necks,  armlets  and  bracelets  of  gold  round  the  arms, 
rings  upon  the  fingers,  and  anklets  round  the  ankles.  The  Egyptian  women  wore  a 
single  garment,  tied  at  the  neck  or  fastened  by  straps  over  the  .shoulders,  and  reaching 


82 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


from  the  neck  or  breast  to  the  feet ;  but 
those  of  the  upper  class  wore  over  this  a 
colored  sash,  passed  twice  around  the  waist 
and  tied  in  front,  and  over  this  second  gar- 
ment a  large,  loose,  fine  linen  robe  with  full 
open  sleeves,  reaching  to  the  elbow.  They 
wore  sandals  like  the  men,  and  the  same 
ornaments,  with  the  addition  of  ear-rings 
in  the  form  of  serpents  or  ending  in  the 
heads  of  animals  or  of  goddesses.  Elegant 
head-dresses  were  woni. 

The  most  important  trades  among  the 
Egyptians  were  those  of  building,  stone- 
cutting,  weaving,  furniture-making,  char- 
iot-making, glass-blowing,  potter)-,  metal- 
lurgy, boat-building  and  embalming.     The 


EGVPTI.\N   HEAD-DRESSES. 

builders  worked  in  wood,  stone  and  brick. 
The  mechanical  excellence  of  their  works  is 
fully  attested  bj-  their  continuance  to  the 
present  day. 

The  paintings  frequently  allude  to  the 
occupations  of  the  mason,  the  stone-cutter 
and  the  sculptor.  Workmen  are  represented 
polishing    and    painting    statues    of    men. 


sphinxes  and  small  figures.  In  two  cases 
are  illustrated  large  granite  colossi,  sur- 
rounded with  scaffolding,  on  which  are  rep- 
resented men  employed  in  polishing  and 
chiseling  the  stone;  the  painter  coloring  the 
hieroglyphics  which  the  .sculptor  had  en- 
graved on  the  back  of  the  statue. 

Stone-cutting  embraced  the  occupations 
of  quarrj'ing  and  shaping  blocks  for  the 
builder,  and  of  cutting,  polishing  and  en- 
graving gems.  The  Egyptians  are  still 
without  rivals  in  the  former  branch.  Blocks 
of  stone  were  usually  cut  with  a  single- 
handed  saw  in  the  hands  of  a  single  sawyer. 
Sometimes  the  pick  and  chisel  were  used  to 
a  considerable  extent,  after  which  wedges 
of  drj-  wood  were  in.serted ;  and 
these  expanded  on  being  wetted, 
and  split  off  the  required  block 
from  the  mass  of  stone  in  the  quarry. 
The  tools  used  were  mostly  of 
bronze.  Blocks  of  stone,  obtained 
from  the  quarries,  were  finally 
smoothed  and  prepared  for  use  bj- 
means  of  the  chi.sel  and  mallet. 

The  Egyptians  carried  on  an  ex- 
tensive commerce  with  other  coun- 
tries ;  importing  gold,  ivor>-,  ebony, 
skins  and  slaves  from  Ethiopia  and 
Central  Africa,  incense  from  Ara- 
bia, and  .spices  and  gems  from  India; 
and  exporting,  in  exchange  for 
the.se  articles,  grain  and  cloth.  As 
the  Egyptians  had  not  attained 
much  skill  in  the  art  of  ship-build- 
ing, their  trade  was  carried  on  prin- 
cipally by  Greek  and  Phoenician 
\  merchants. 

•J  Eg3'ptian  sculpture  was  designed 

to  illustrate  the  religious  faith  of 
the  people,  and  for  this  reason  was 
charadlerized  by  grandeur  and  sub- 
limity rather  than  beauty.  Their  peculiar 
ta.ste  was  the  outgrowth  of  their  religious 
ideas,  for  the  aim  was  to  inspire  awe  rather 
than  please  the  eye  with  graceful  and  ele- 
gant forms.  This  checked  all  progress  in 
art,  for  all  inventive  genius  was  fettered  by 
conventional  rules  founded  on  religions  Ije- 
liefs.     Colossal  statues,  uncouth  allegorical 


CIVILIZATION. 


83 


figures  and  strange  ideal  fonns  of  animals 
supplied  the  place  of  nature  and  beauty 
in  Eg>^ptian  art.  Painting,  as  illustrated 
by  the  specimens  in  the  interiors  of  tem- 
ples and  sepulchers,  was  likewise  intended 
to  ser\-e  the  cause  of  religion,  and  was 
trammeled  by  the  same  conventional  rules, 
certain  colors  being  strictlj'  prescribed  in 
representing  the  bodies  and  draperies  of  the 
gods,  thus  sacrificing  variety  of  form  to  an 
ideal  mouotou)-.  The  painting  was  often 
executed  in  brilliant  coloring,  but  the  draw- 
ing lacked  accurac>-,  exhibiting  no  compli- 
ance with  the  rules  of  perspective  or  the 
plainest  laws  of  vision.  The  pigments 
used  were  characterized  by  durability  and 
often  b)-  brilliancy. 

Ancient  Egj'ptian  scu.pture  embraces 
statuary;  reliefs,  or  representations  of  forms 
on  a  flat  .surface  by  means  of  a  certain  pro- 
jedlion;  and  intaolios.  or  representations  by 
cutting  the  fonns  into  stone  or  marble,  thus 
sinking  them  below  the  surtace.  Completely 
detached  statues  are  rare  in  Egypt.  The 
statues  were  cut  out  of  stone.  There  are 
grotesque  figures  of  Phthah  and  Bes,  which 
produce  disgust  and  aversion.  Egyptian 
statuary'  was  distinguished  for  massivene.ss 
and  strength.  The  statuettes,  in  bronze, 
basalt  or  terra-cotta,  are  less  dignified  than 
the  statues,  but  possess  more  elegance  and 
grace.  The  Great  Sphinx,  near  the  Pyra- 
mids of  Ghizeh,  is  a  .striking  monument, 
and  impresses  the  beholder  with  its  air  of 
impassive  dignity.  Other  sphinxes  have  a 
certain  calmness  and  grandeur.  There  are 
also  statuettes  of  bulls,  monkeys  and  dogs, 
which  are  fairly  good.  • 

Animal  forms  are  excellent,  but  the  chief 
defecfls  of  P'gyptian  drawings  are  improper 
proportion  and  incorrect  perspecti\-e.  The 
bas-reliefs  have  the  same  defedls  in  this  re- 
spedl  as  their  statues  and  statuettes;  and 
there  is  a  frequent  intrusion  of  hideous 
forms,  as  seen  in  the  three  huge  and  mis- 
shapen figures,  so  frequently  seen  upon  the 
ceilings  of  temples,  aud  which  are  suppo.sed 
to  represent  ' '  the  heavens. ' '  Bes  in  all  his 
forms  is  fearful  to  behold:  as  are  also  Taou- 
ris,  Savak,  Cerberus,  Khem,  and  sometimes 


even  Osiris.  The  forms  of  the  gods  are  all 
more  or  less  repulsive;  the  stiff  outlines,  the 
close-fitting  robes,  the  large  hands  and  feet, 
the  frequent  animal  heads  and  innnense 
head-dresses,  the  ugly  or  inexpressive  faces, 
recall  the  mon.strosities  of  the  religious  re- 
presentations of  Brahminism  and  Buddhi.sm. 

The  drawings,  mostl\-  of  a  .serious  nature, 
are  of  four  kind.s — i,  religiotis,  where  wor- 
ship, especially  sacrifice,  is  offered  to  the 
gods,  or  where  the  gods  .sustain  the  king,  or 
where  the  soul  passes  through  scenes  it  will 
endure  after  death;  2,  processional,  where  the 
monarch  goes  in  state,  or  where  tribute  is 
brought  to  him,  or  where  the  pomp  of  a  fun- 
eral, or  the  installation  of  an  official,  or  some 
other  civil  ceremony,  forms  the  subjedt;  3, 
ivar  scenes,  such  as  land  and  naval  battles, 
sieges  of  forts,  marches  of  armies,  the  return 
home  with  bootj-  and  captiA-es,  etc. ;  4,  scenes 
of  ordinary  life,  as  exclusively  represented  in 
the  tombs,  where  the  houses  and  goods,  the 
occupations,  the  hunting  scenes,  the  enter- 
tainments, and  the  amusements  of  the  de- 
cea.sed  are  depicted.  These  tomb  scenes  are 
the  most  numerous  and  the  most  interesting; 
and  here  the  Egyptians  are  sportive  and 
amusing,  exhibiting  playfulness  and  humor, 
and  even  approaching  caricature. 

In  painting  the  Egyptians  drew  figures 
of  men  and  animals,  and  also  of  other  ob- 
jects, in  outline  on  a  white  background, 
and  then  filled  in  the  outline,  wholly  or 
partially,  with  ma.sses  of  uniform  hue,  prac- 
ticing no  shading  or  .softening  of  the  tints. 
All  the  exposed  parts  of  a  man's  body  were 
colored  with  a  uniform  red-brown;  all  the 
exposed  portions  of  a  woman's  body,  with  a 
lighter  red  or  a  yellow.  Except  in  the  case 
of  foreigners,  the  hair  and  beard  were  pitch- 
black.  Dresses  were  mostly  white,  with 
their  folds  marked  by  lines  of  red  or  brown, 
and  were  sometimes  striped  or  otherwise 
patterned,  generalh-  red  or  blue.  Most 
large  surfaces  were  more  or  less  patterned, 
generally  with  small  patterns  of  various 
colors,  including  much  of  white.  The  stone 
on  which  the  Eg^'ptians  painted — whether 
sandstone,  fossiliferous  limestone,  or  granite 
— was   covered   with   a   coating   of  stucco, 


84 


A  NCIF.N  T  HIS  TOR  Y.— EGYPT. 


which  was  white  or  whitish  and  prevented 
the  colors  from  Ijeing  lost  by  sinking  into 
the  background.  Besides  black,  white, 
red,  blue  and  yellow,  they  used  green, 
brown  and  gray,  as  colors  in  their  paint- 
ings. The  black  is  a  bone-black.  The 
white  is  prepared  from  pure  chalk  with  a 
light  trace  of  iron.  The  red  and  the  yellow- 
are  ochres,  the  coloring  matter  being  iron 
mixed  with  the  earthy 
substance.  The  Ijhie 
is  derived  from  the  ox- 
ide of  copper  combined 
with  pulverized  gla.ss. 
The  green  is  the  same 
preparation  combined 
■with  yellow  ochre. 
The  l>rown  is  a  mix- 
ture of  blue-black  with 
the  red.  The  colors 
were  mixed  with  water 
and  with  a  moderate 
amount  of  gum,  to 
inake  the  mixture  ad- 
hesive and  tenacious. 
They  were  applied  to 
a  stuccoed  flat  surface, 
or  to  figures  in  relief  or  intaglio. 

The  great  temple-palace  of  Rameses  1 1 1,  at 
Medinet-Abu  full\-  illustrates  the  combined 
effe(5ts  of  painting  and  .sculpture  in  Egypt. 
On  the  north-east  wall  of  this  ruined  struc- 
ture is  represented,  in  painting,  the  king  on  a 
throne,  in.scribed  with  a  hawk-headed  figure 
leading  a  lion  and  .sphinx.  Behind  the 
king  are  the  winged  effigies  of  Truth  and 
Justice.  Twehe  royal  princes  bear  the 
shrine,  and  high  officers  of  .state  ^va^■e  their 
labella  before  their  august  sovereign,  while 
priests  carry  his  arms  and  insignia.  The 
monarch's  sons  bear  the  footstool  of  his 
throne,  and  are  accompanied  by  .scribes  and 
great  warriors.  There  is  likewi.se  .seen  a 
])roce.ssion  of  .scholars,  fan-bearers  and  sol- 
diers. A  great  scribe  delivers  a  jiroclama- 
mation  from  a  roll  of  papyrus,  and  the 
high-])riest  burns  incen.se  before  the  shrine. 
Birds  fly  in  every  dire(5tion,  as  if  to  spread 
Pharaoh's  fame  to  every  quarter  of  the 
world.     This  is  but  a  part  of  the  elaborate 


.sculpture,  the  effedl  of  which  is  heightened 
by  the  painter's  art,  on  the  inside  walls  of 
the  great  temple-palace.  The  temples  and 
palaces  of  Thebes  exhibit  a  similar  degree 
of  form  and  color,  which  appear  almost  as 
perfedt  as  if  they  had  just  come  from  the 
artist's  hand. 

As  we  .shall  observe,  the  belief  of  the  future 
reunion  of  the  soul  and  body  was  the  reason 


SCULPTURKD    F.\(;.\DE   OF   THE   TKMPI.K   OF    KDFU. 

taken  to  preser\-e  the  latter  from  decay,  as 
exemplified  in  the  singular  custom  of  em- 
balming the  dead,  which  was  the  uni^•ersal 
pracftice  among  this  celebrated  people,  and 
also  in  the  great  pains  taken  to  ornament 
the  insides  of  the  rock-hewn  supulchers,  the 
belief  pre\-ailing  that  the  dead  body  in  the 
tomb  was  not  entirely  unconscious. 

While  other  nations  embellished  the  tem- 
ples and  palaces  of  the  living,  the  ancient 
Eg>'ptians  decorated  their  tombs,  the  recep- 
tacles of  the  dead,  with  la\ish  splendor. 
Many  of  these  highly-ornamented  sepulchral 
chambers  .seem  only  accessible  through  long, 
narrow  and  intricate  passages.  The  entrances 
to  others  seem  to  be  closed  with  the  stricftest 
care,  and  hidden  with  reverential  san<5tity. 
A  necropolis,  or  ' '  city  of  the  dead, ' '  belonged 
to  each  city  or  nome.  In  the  rock-hewn  sep- 
ulchers  of  Memphis  and  Thebes  were  treas- 
ured up  all  the  scenes  in  which  the  living 
monarch  and  his  subjects  had  figured. 
Egypt  abounds  ^\■ith  inniiense  tombs,  whose 


CIV1LI/-AT10N. 


85 


walls,  like  those  of  the  temples,  are  adorned 
with  the  most  wonderful  paintings,  exeeuted 
three  and  four  thousand  years  ago.  In 
these  paintings,  the  entire  country,  with  all 
its  natural  productions,  its  vegetables,  ani- 
mals, birds,  fishes,  and  the  people  in  all  their 
private  and  domestic  occupations,  are  delin- 
eated with  a  remarkable  fidelity  of  outline 
and  an  extraordinary  richness  of  coloring. 
Religion  was  at  the  foundation  of  the  ex- 
traordinary care  which  the  E.gyptians  be- 
stowed upon  their  dead.  The  whole  art  of 
embalming  the  body — the  preparing,  the 
bandaging,  the  anointing,  in  faCl  the  entire 
process  of  forming  the  inunnny — was  a  duty 
of  the  priests.  This  remarkable  custom  was 
a  universal  national  usage  among  the  an- 
cient Egyptians,  and  had  an  inseparable 
conneclion  with  their  religious  dogmas  and 
sentiment.  The  origin  of  this  singular 
pradlice  has  been  traced  to  the  local  circum- 
stances of  the  country.  In  Egypt  the  cus- 
toms of  burning  and  burying  the  dead,  which 
have  prevailed  among  other  nations,  were 
impradlicable, — the  first,  because  the  country 
produces  little  timber,  and  its  fruit-trees, 
such  as  the  date-palm  and  others,  are  too 
valuable  for  ordinary  consumption:  and  the 
second,  becau.se  in  the  narrow  Nile  valley 
all  the  land  available  for  agricultural  pur- 
poses was  required  for  the  sustenance  of 
the  dense  population,  and  also  becau.se 
the  annual  inundation  of  the  Nile  would 
have  washed  up  the  bodies  and  generated 
pestilence.  The  rock)-  mountain  ranges  on 
each  side  of  the  river  .seemed  designed  by 
nature  for  sepulchers;  but  the  multitudes  of 
the  dead  could  not  with  .safety  be  heaped 
together  in  a  state  of  decomposition,  even  in 
the  inmost  chambers  of  their  rocks,  without 
breeding  pestilence.  Ancient  Egypt  was 
remarkably  free  from  the  epidemic  plagfues 
which  now  desolate  the  Nile  land,  on  ac- 
count of  the  universal  praiflice  of  embalm- 
ing the  dead,  which  cut  off  one  chief  .source 
of  noxious  vapors.  This  peculiar  custom 
was,  therefore,  a  wise  sanitary  regulation, 
adopted  by  the  priestly  lawgivers,  and  in- 
corporated with  the  civil  and  religious  in.sti- 
tutions  of  ihe  nation. 
1— 6.-U.  H. 


The  Egyptian  lawgivers,  having  recog- 
nized this  provi.sion  as  es.sential  to  the 
public  health,  .secured  its  universal  and 
permanent  pradlice  by  associating  it  with 
the  doctrines  of  the  soul's  immortality  and 
the  metempsychosis,  or  transmigration  of 
the  .soul.  It  was  believed  that  every  spirit, 
upon  leaving  the  bod)-,  must  pa.ss  through 
a  predestined  cycle  of  three  thou-sand  years, 
entering  successively  into  the  bodies  of 
various  animals,  xuitil  it  returned  to  the 
human  body  from  which  it  had  departed. 
Whenever  the  body  which  it  had  last  left 
became  subject  to  corruption  the  course  of 
its  migrations  was  suspended;  the  end  of  its 
long  journey  and  its  ardently-wished-for  re- 
turn to  more  exalted  states  of  existence  was 
delaj'ed.  For  this  rea.son  the  utmost  care 
was  taken  to  pre,ser\-e  the  bodies  of  human 
beings  and  animals,  and  .secure  them  forever 
from  decomposition  and  putrefadtion.  Thus 
this  u.sage  was  enforced  by  stringent  and 
sacred  laws,  and  certain  orders  of  the  priest- 
hood were  expressly  empowered  with  the 
duty  of  carr^-ing  it  into  execution.  Em- 
balming w-as  performed  with  .solenui  relig- 
ious rites.  Herodotus  tells  us  that  when  a 
body  was  found  seized  by  a  crocodile,  or 
drowned  in  the  Nile,  the  city  upon  whose 
territory-  the  body  was  cast  was  obliged  to 
take  it  in  charge  and  to  cau.se  it  to  be  em- 
balmed and  interred  in  a  sepulcher. 

The  tombs  of  the  wealthy  consisted  of  one 
or  more  chambers,  ornamented  with  paint- 
ings and  sculpture,  the  place  and  size  o 
which  depended  on  the  expen.se  which  the 
family  of  the  deceased  incurred,  or  on  the 
wishes  of  the  persons  who  purchased  them 
I  during  their  lifetime.  These  sepulchers  were 
!  owned  by  the  priests;  and  as  a  sufficient 
number  w-ere  always  held  in  readiness,  the 
purchase  was  made  at  the  shortest  possible 
notice,  even  the  sculptures  and  in.scriptions 
being  so  far  complete  as  to  require  only  the 
insertion  of  the  name  of  the  deceased,  and  a 
few^  statements  concerning  his  family  and 
profes.sion.  The  numerous  subjects  illus- 
trating agricultural  life,  the  trades  and  occu- 
pations of  the  i)eo])le,  their  diversions,  etc., 
were  already  introduced.      These  were  the 


86 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


same  in  all  the  tombs,  diflfering  only  in  their 
details  and  the  manner  of  their  execution, 
and  were  probably  designed  as  a  brief  epit- 
ome of  human  life,  being  adapted  equally 
to  every  future  occupant.  In  some  cases  all 
the  paintings  of  the  tomb  were  completed, 
and  even  the  small  figures  representing 
the  tenant  were  introduced,  only  those  of 
larger  size  l)eing  left  unsculptured,  because 
they  required  more  accuracy  in  the  features 
to  give  a  corTe(5t  portrait.  In  .some  instances 
even  the  large  figures  were  finished  before 
the  tomb  was  sold,  only  the  hierogl3-phic 
legends  containing  the  names  of  the  tenant 
and  his  wife  remaining  to  be  inserted.  The 
priests  often  sold  old  mummy-cases  and 
tombs  belonging  to  other  persons,  altering 
the  hieroglyphics  and  giving  the  name 
of  the  new  tenant.  This  was  especially  the 
case  when  the  purchaser  was  satisfied,  from 
motives  of  economy,  with  a  second-hand 
tenement  for  the  remains  of  his  departed 
friend. 

The  tomli  was  invariably  prepared  as  a 
resting-place  for  the  bodies  of  a  husband  and 
his  wife.  Whichever  died  first  was  interred 
in  the  .sepulcher,  or  was  kept  embalmed  in 
the  house  until  the  death  of  the  other.  The 
manner  in  which  husband  and  wife  are 
always  represented,  with  their  arms  around 
each  other's  waist  or  neck,  illustrates  the 
aflfecftionate  di.sposition  of  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tians. The  presence  of  the  different  rela- 
tives, who  are  introduced  in  the  performance 
of  some  tender  office  to  the  deceased  friend, 
shows  the  attachment  of  a  family  to  its  de- 
parted relatives. 

Besides  the  upper  rooms  of  the  Egyptian 
tombs,  which  were  ornamented  with  the 
paintings  already  described,  there  were  pits, 
from  twenty  to  seventy  feet  deep,  at  the 
bottom  and  sides  of  which  were  recesses, 
like  small  chambers,  for  the  reception  of  the 
coffins.  The  pit  was  closed  with  masonry 
after  the  interment  of  the  body,  and  was,  in 
.some  cases,  reopened  to  receive  the  other 
members  of  the  family.  The  upper  apart- 
ments were  profusely  ornamented  with 
painted  sculptures,  thus  bearing  the  char- 
acter of  a  monument   in   honor   of  the  de- 


ceased, rather  than  his  sepulcher.  These 
apartments  served  for  the  reception  of  the 
friends  of  the  deceased,  who  often  met  there, 
and  accompanied  the  priests  when  perform- 
ing the  .services  for  the  dead.  Tombs  were 
built  of  brick  or  stone,  or  cut  in  the  solid 
rock,  according  to  the  position  of  the  ne- 
cropolis. The  rock-hewn  tombs  were  pre- 
ferred wherever  the  mountains  were  near 
enough  to  the  Nile,  and  the.se  were  usually 
the  most  elegant  in  design  and  variety  of 
sculpture.  The  sepulchers  of  the  poorer 
classes  had  no  upper  chamber.  The  coffins 
of  these  were  laid  in  pits  in  the  plain,  or  in 
recesses  at  the  side  of  a  rock.  Mummies 
of  the  lower  orders  were  interred  together 
in  a  common  repositorj',  and  the  remains 
of  those  whose  relatives  were  too  poor  to  de- 
defray  the  expen.ses  of  a  funeral,  after  being 
cleansed  and  kept  in  an  alkaline  solu- 
tion for  seventy  days,  were  wrapped  up  in 
coarse  cloth,  in  mats  or  in  a  bundle  of  palm 
sticks,  and  laid  in  the  earth. 

We  have  the  following  account  of  the 
funeral  of  Nophri-Othph,  a  priest  of  Amun, 
at  Thebes,  from  the  walls  of  his  tomb.  The 
scene  of  the  funeral  was  on  the  lake,  and  on 
the  way  from  the  lake  to  the  .sepulcher.  At 
the  head  of  the  procession  was  a  large  boat 
conveying  the  bearers  of  flowers,  cakes  and 
many  things  relating  to  the  offerings,  tables, 
chairs  and  other  articles  of  furniture,  as 
well  as  the  friends  of  the  deceased,  these 
being  con.spicuous  by  their  dresses  and  their 
long  walking-sticks,  the  distinguishing  mark 
of  Egyptian  gentlemen.  Next  came  a  small 
skiff,  carrj'ing  baskets  of  cakes  and  fruit, 
with  a  supply  of  green  palm-branches,  which 
it  was  the  custom  to  strew  in  the  way  as 
the  body  was  being  conveyed  to  the  tomb; 
the  smoothness  of  the  palm-lea\-es  and 
stalks  making  it  easy  for  the  sled  to  glide 
over  them.  The  lo\-e  of  caricature,  so  gen- 
eral among  the  Egyptians,  even  in  so  serious 
a  matter  as  a  funeral,  is  exemplified  in  this 
portion  of  the  scene.  A  large  boat  having 
run  aground  and  being  pushed  off  the  bank, 
struck  a  smaller  one  with  its  rudder,  and 
overturned  a  large  table,  loaded  with  cakes 
and    other   things,  upon   the  heads  of  the 


CIl'ILIZATlON. 


87 


rowers  seated  below,  iiotwiUistaiuliiig  all 
the  exertions  of  a  man  in  the  jirow,  and 
the  vehement  cries  of  the  frightened  helnis- 
niau. 

In  another  boat  were  men  carn,-ing 
bunches  of  flowers  and  boxes  supported  by 
yokes  on  their  shoulders.  Then  followed 
two  other  boats,  one  convejang  the  male 
mourners,  and  the  other  the  female  mourn- 
ers, standing  on  the  roof  of  the  cabin,  beat- 
ing themselves,  uttering  cries  and  making 
other  demonstrations  of  grief.  At  last  came 
the  consecrated  boat,  carr>'ing  the  hearse, 
around  which  were  the  chief  mourners  and 
the  female  relatives  of  the  deceased.  Upon 
arriving  at  the  opposite  shore  of  the  lake, 
the  procession  marched  to  the  catacombs. 
On  their  way,  several  women  of  the  vicinity, 
carrj'ing  their  children  in  shawls,  suspended 
from  the  side  or  back,  joined  in  the  lamen- 
tations of  the  funeral  train.  The  nuunmy 
was  set  in  a  standing  position  in  the  cham- 
ber of  the  tomb;  and  the  sister,  wife  or 
nearest  relative,  embracing  it,  began  a 
funeral  dirge,  calling  upon  the  deceased 
with  ever}'  expres.sion  of  affection,  extolling 
his  virtues  and  bewailing  her  own  great 
loss.  The  high-priest  presented  a  sacrifice 
of  incense  and  libation,  with  offerings  of 
cakes  and  other  usual  gifts  for  the  dead; 
and  the  male  and  female  mourners  con- 
tinued the  wailing,  throwing  dust  upon 
their  heads,  and  making  other  demonstra- 
tions of  grief. 

Another  painting  represents  the  judgment 
of  a  wicked  soul,  which  is  condemned  to 
return  to  earth  in  the  form  of  a  pig,  having 
been  weighed  in  the  scales  before  Osiris  and 
found  wanting.  It  is  put  in  a  boat,  and, 
attended  by  two  monkeys,  is  expelled  from 
heaven,  all  intercourse  with  which  is  sym- 
bolically cut  off  by  a  man  hewing  away  the 
ground  behind  it  with  an  axe. 

During  the  whole  period  of  seventj'-two 
days  of  mourning  for  the  dead,  the  process 
of  embalming  the  body  was  performed. 
This  embalming  was  perfonned  by  the  physi- 
cians, who,  as  we  have  obser\'ed,  were  of 
the  priestly  order.  Vast  numbers  of  sacred 
animals — bulls,  apes,  dogs,  cats,  sheep,  etc. 


— were  likewise  embalmed.  It  is  said  that 
more  than  four  hundred  million  munnnics 
of  human  beings  were  made  in  Ivgypt.  In 
recent  years  many  of  the.se  mummies  have 
been  brought  from  the  land  of  the  Pha- 
raohs to  our  nui.seiuns.  Tombs  have  been 
opened  revealing  thousands  of  them  in  rows 
one  upon  another,  without  coffins.  vShip- 
loads  of  them  have  been  transported  to 
England,  and  ground  up  for  fertilizers  for 
the  .soil. 


Kr.VPTI.\N     MUMMIKS. 

The  embalmers  of  dead  bodies  constituted 
a  numerous  class  among  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tians, and  must  have  carried  on  a  prosper- 
ous trade,  if  the  prices  mentioned  by  Dio- 
dorus  were  ac?tually  tho.se  usually  exadted. 
According  to  the  Sicilian  historian,  the  most 
improved  method  of  preparing  a  corp.se  for 
interment  cost  a  sum  which,  in  our  money, 
would  amount  to  about  a  thousand  dollars. 
A  secondary  and  much  inferior  method  re- 
quired an  expenditure  amounting  to  about 
four  hundred  dollars.  The  lowest  and 
poorest  classes  had  a  third  method,  the 
price  of  which  was  comparatively  mod- 
erate; but  the  vast  numbers  of  this  class 
must  have  made  the  profits  to  the  em- 
balmers considerable.  It  has  been  esti- 
mated that  between  B.  C.  2000  and  A.  D. 
700,  when  embalming  ceased,  there  may 
have  been  interred  in  Egypt  four  hundred 
and  twenty  million  munuiiied  corpses,  a\'er- 
aging  one  hundred  and  fiftj'-five  thousand 
yearly.     If  five-sixths  of  these,  or  one  hun- 


88 


ANCIENT  HISTOR  Y.  —  EG  YPT. 


dred  and  thirty  thousand,  belonged  to  the 
lower  classes,  while  two-fifteenths,  or  twenty 
thousand,  may  have  been  furnished  by  the 
middle  classes,  and  one-thirtieth,  or  five 
thousand,  b)-  the  wealthy  classes,  and  if 
the  poor  man  paid  one-twentieth  of  the 
price  paid  by  those  of  the  upper  middle  class, 
the  annual  amount  received  by  the  embalm- 
ers  would  have  exceeded  fifteen  million  dol- 
lars of  our  money. 

The  process  of  embalming  was  very  an- 
cient in  Egypt,  and  by  the  time  of  the 
Eighteenth  Dynasty  the  art  had  reached  a 
remarkable  degree  of  perfe(5tion.  In  the 
most  expensive  system,  the  brain  was  ex- 
tra (fled  with  great  skill  by  a  cur\^ed,  bronze 
implement  through  the  nostrils,  after  which 
the  skull  was  washed  out  with  certain  medi- 
caments. The  nostrils  were  plugged  up, 
the  eyes  were  removed  and  their  places  sup- 
plied with  artificial  ones  of  ivory  or  ob- 
sidian, and  the  hair  was  likewise  sometimes 
removed  and  placed  in  a  separate  packet, 
covered  with  linen  and  bitumen.  An  open- 
ing was  cut  in  the  right  side  with  a  flint 
knife,  through  which  the  entire  intestines 
were  removed  by  the  hand  and  deposited  in 
sepulchral  urns.  The  cavity  was  then 
cleansed  by  an  injection  of  palm-wine,  and 
.sometimes  by  a  subsequent  infusion  of 
pounded  aromatics;  after  which  it  was  filled 
with  bruised  mj'rrh,  cassia,  cinnamon  and 
other  spices.  The  whole  body  was  then 
immersed  in  natron  for  seventy  days.  The 
finger-nails  were  kept  in  place  with  thread, 
or  by  means  of  silver  gloves  or  stalls  placed 
over  the  fingers.  A  tin  plate,  in.scribed 
with  the  symbolic  eye,  was  laid  .over  the 
incision  in  the  right  side.  The  arms  were 
arranged  symmetrically  along  the  sides,  or 
on  the  breast  or  groins.  The  body  was  then 
bandaged.  Linen  bandages  were  always 
u.sed,  and  were  generally  three  or  four 
inches  wide  and  .several  yards  long.  The 
coarser  linen  was  nearest  the  body,  the  finer 
towards  the  outside.  In  some  instances  the 
bandages  in  which  a  single  corp.se  was 
swathed  were  over  .seven  hundred,  or,  ac- 
cording to  Pettigrew,  over  a  thousand  j-ards 
long.     The  bandages  were  joined  together 


and  kept  in  place  with  gum.  After  the  ban- 
daging, an  outer  linen  shroud,  dyed  red  with 
the  cavihamus  iinfloriiis,  and  ornamented 
with  a  network  of  porcelain  beads,  was  put 
over  the  entire  body;  or  the  bandaged  body 
was  covered  by  a  "cartonnage,"  composed 
of  twenty-four  layers  of  linen  tightly  pressed 
and  glued  together,  thus  forming  a  kind  of 
pasteboard  envelope,  which  was  then  thinly 
coated  with  stucco,  and  painted  in  bright 
colors  with  hieroglyphics  and  figures  of 
deities  The  bod}-  was  then  placed  within  a 
wooden  coffin  shaped  similarly,  and  in  most 
instances  similarh-  ornamented;  and  this 
coffin  was  often  enclosed  within  another,  or 
within  several,  each  just  capable  of  holding 
the  preceding  one.  In  the  funerals  of  the 
wealthy  the  coffined  body  was  placed 
within  a  stone  chest,  or  sarcophagus,  which 
might  be  of  granite,  alabaster,  basalt,  brec- 
cia or  other  good  material,  and  was  either 
rectangular  or  in  the  form  of  the  mummied 
bod}-.  Some  sarcophagi  were  plain,  but 
many  were  adorned  with  sculptures  in  re- 
lief or  intaglio,  embracing  mainly  scenes  and 
passages  from  the  most  sacred  of  Egy-ptian 
writings,  the  "Ritual  of  the  Dead." 

When  the  family  or  relatives  were  unable 
or  indisposed  to  incur  the  large  expen.se  re- 
quired by  this  costly  mode  of  embalming,  a 
cheaper  method  was  adopted.  The  viscera, 
instead  of  being  deposited  with  spices  in 
separate  urns,  could  be  returned  into  the 
body,  accompanied  by  wax  images  of  the 
four  genii.  The  abdominal  cavity  could  be 
only  cleansed  with  cedar  oil,  and  not  filled 
with  spices.  The  silver  finger-stalls  and 
artificial  eyes  could  be  dispensed  with.  The 
bandages  could  be  reduced  in  number  and 
made  of  coarser  linen.  The  ornamentation 
could  be  simpler.  A  single  wooden  coffin 
would  be  sufficient,  and  the  sarcophagus 
might  be  done  without.  Thus  the  expense 
of  funerals  could  be  reduced  within  mode- 
rate limits. 

A  still  cheaper  mode  was  necessary  for 
the  poorer  classes.  Sometimes  the  bodies 
of  the  poor  were  submerged  in  mineral  pitch. 
Often  they  were  only  dried  and  salted. 
Bodies  prepared  in  this  manner  are  in  some 


Rr.T.IGION   AND    MYTHOLOGY. 


89 


cases  swathed  in  bandages,  but  are  frequently 
only  wrapped  in  coarse  cloths  or  rags.  These 
bodies  are  not  enclosed  in  coffins,  and  have 
been  only  buried  in  the  ground,  some  singly, 


others  in  layers,  one  above  the  other.  The 
expense  of  these  modes  of  embalming  was 
.so  trifling  as  to  be  within  the  reach  of  the 
poorest. 


SECTION    v.— EGYPTIAN    RELIGION    AND    MYTHOLOGY. 


lONCERNING  the  Egyptians, 
Herodotus  says :  "They  are  of 
all  men  the  most  excessively 
attentive  to  the  worship  of  the 
gods."  Much  of  the  theology, 
m3'thology  and  ceremonies  of  the  Hebrews 
and  Greeks  had  their  origin  in  Egj'pt.  He- 
rodotus further  says:  '  'The  names  of  almost 
all  the  gods  came  from  Egypt  to  Greece." 
He  also  states  that  the  Greek  oracles,  es- 
pecially that  of  Dodona,  were  brought  from 
Eg^'pt,  and  that  the  Egyptians  first  intro- 
duced public  festivals,  processions  and  sol- 
emn supplications,  which  the  Greeks  learned 
from  them.  He  goes  on  to  say:  "The  Eg>'p- 
tians  are  beyond  measure  scrupulous  in  mat- 
ters of  religion."  They  invented  the  calen- 
dar and  connedled  astrology  with  it.  Says 
Herodotus  :  ' '  Each  month  and  day  is  as- 
signed to  some  particular  god,  and  each  per- 
son's birthday-  determines  his  fate."  He  like- 
wise says  :  ' '  The  Egyptians  were  also  the 
first  to  say  that  the  soul  of  man  is  immortal 
and  that  it  transmigrates  through  everv^  va- 
rvG.\x  of  animal."  The  Greek  Mysteries  of 
Eleusis  were  taken  from  those  of  Isis,  and 
the  storj^  of  the  wanderings  of  Ceres  in  pur- 
suit of  Proserpine  was  borrowed  from  that  of 
Isis  in  search  of  Osiris.  Modem  writers 
agree  with  Herodotus.  Wilkinson  says  : 
"The  Eg>-ptians  were  unquestionably  the 
most  pious  nation  of  all  antiquity.  The  old- 
est monuments  show  their  belief  in  a  future 
life.  And  Osiris,  the  Judge,  is  mentioned 
in  tombs  two  thousand  j-ears before  Christ." 
Bunsen  says:  "It  has  at  last  been  ascer- 
tained that  all  the  great  gods  of  Egypt  are 
on  the  oldest  monuments."  He  goes  on  to 
say:  "It  is  a  great  and  astonishing  facft,  es- 
tablished bej'oud  possibility  of  doubt,  that 
the  empire  of  Menes,  on  its  first  appearance 


in  historv',  possessed  an  established  mythol- 
og}-,  that  is,  a  series  of  gods.  Before  the 
empire  of  Menes  the  separate  Egj'ptian 
states  had  their  temple  worship  regularlj- 
organized. ' ' 

M.  Maun,-,  the  French  Egj'ptologist,  saj'S 
that  everything  among  the  Egyptians  took 
the  stamp  of  religion.  Their  writing  was 
so  full  of  sacred  symbols  as  to  render  it 
almost  useless  for  any  other  purpose.  Lit- 
erature, science  and  art  were  branches  of 
theology-  and  worship.  The  most  common 
labors   of  daily   life  were  constantly  inter- 


EGYPTI.\N   TRINITY. 

rupted  by  some  reference  to  priesth-  regula- 
tion. The  future  fate  of  every  Egyptian 
was  perpetually  before  him,  so  that  he  only 
hved  to  worship  the  gods.  When  the  sun 
set,  it  seemed  to  die;  when  it  arose,  it  seemed 


90 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y.  —EG  YPT. 


a  symbol  of  the  resurrecftion.  Religion 
penetrated  so  deeply  into  the  people's  hab- 
its that  it  became  an  instin<5t.  It  was  of 
all  polj-theisms  the  last  to  give  way  to 
Christianity,  retaining  its  votaries  as  late 
as  the  sixth  century  of  the  Christian  era. 

The  ancient  Egyptian  religion  was  a 
perplexing  mixture  of  monotheism  and 
polytheism,  of  lofty  and  noble  conceptions 
and  of  degrading  superstitions. 

The  sacred  books  of  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tians contained  the  religion  of  the  priests, 
who  were  raonotheists  and  considered  it  im- 
pious to  represent  the  Supreme  Being  by 
images  and  idols;  but  they  made  him  known 
to  the  masses  by  personifying  his  various 
attributes  and  manifestations,  as  Phthah  the 
Creator,  Amun  the  Revealer,  and  Osiris  the 
Benefactor  and  Judge,  and  so  on  through  an 
innumerable  list  of  primary,  secondary  and 
tertiary  characflers,  which,  to  the  untutored 
masses,  became  so  many  separate  deities, 
thus  accounting  for  the  polytheistic  faith  of 
the  lower  classes.  Some  portion  of  the  di- 
vine life  was  believed  to  pervade  plants 
and  animals,  which  were  consequently  cher- 
ished and  worshiped  by  the  ignorant;  for 
what  to  the  wise  and  learned  were  merely 
symbols  became  to  the  people  distindt  ob- 
jec5ts  of  adoration;  and  the  Egyptian  priests, 
like  other  ancient  philosophers,  disdained  to 
enlighten  the  people,  whom  they  despised 
and  deemed  incapable  of  comprehending 
their  grand  conceptions,  and  whom  they  de- 
sired to  hold  in  subservience  to  their  own 
and  the  kingly  authority. 

Thus  there  were  two  kinds  of  Egyptian 
theology — esoteric,  or  an  interior  theology, 
for  the  initiated,  and  exoteric,  or  an  ex- 
terior theology,  for  the  uninitiated.  The 
interior  hidden  theology  for  the  priests  and 
the  wise  related  to  the  unity  and  spirituality 
of  the  Deity.  The  exterior  theology  for  the 
masses  consisted  of  mythological  accounts 
of  Osiris  and  Isis,  the  judgment  of  the 
dead,  the  metempsychosis,  or  transmigra- 
tion of  the  .soul,  and  everj-thing  pertaining 
to  the  ceremonial  worship  of  the  gods. 

Herodotus  tells  us  that  the  Egyptian 
masses  believed  in  three  orders  of  gods,  and 


Bun.sen  and  Wilkinson  thought  that  they 
had  succeeded  in  tracing  them  from  the 
monuments.  Thus  there  were  eight  gods  of 
the  first  order,  twelve  gods  of  the  second 
order,  and  seven  gods  of  the  third  order. 
The  gods  of  the  first  order  were  of  a  higher 
and  more  spiritual  class;  tho.se  of  the  second 
order  were  a  transition  from  the  first  order 
to  the  third — children  of  the  first  and 
parents  of  the  third.  The  first  order  of 
gods  was  for  the  priesthood,  and  taught  them 
the  unity,  spirituality  and  creative  power  of 
the  One  True  and  Indi\-isible  Supreme 
Being. 

The  gods  of  the  third  order  were  for  the 
masses  of  the  people,  and  were  the  personal 
agents  which  represented  the  forms  and 
forces  of  external  nature,  which  was  believed 
by  the  ignorant  masses  to  work  through  this 
third  series  of  gods,  the  most  popular  of 
which  were  Osiris  and  Isis.  The  gods  of 
the  second  or  intermediate  order  were  neither 
so  abstracft  as  those  of  the  first  order,  nor  so 
concrete  as  those  of  the  third  order — not  rep- 
resenting either  the  spiritual  charadleristics 
of  the  gods  of  the  first  cla.ss,  or  the  natural 
qualities  and  forces  of  those  of  the  third 
class,  but  rather  the  powers  and  faculties  of 
human  beings.  For  this  reason  most  of  the 
deities  of  this  second  class  were  adopted  by 
the  Greeks,  whose  religious  sj-stem  was  es- 
sentially founded  on  hunian  nature,  and 
whose  gods  and  goddesses  were  mainly  the 
imaginary  representations  of  human  char- 
adleristics. 

The  eight  gods  of  the  first  order  were 
believed  to  constitute  a  process  of  divine 
development,  and  were  supposed  to  exercise 
the  power  of  revealing  themselves.  These 
eight  divinities,  according  to  Bunsen,  were 
arranged  in  the  following  order :  i.  Amn, 
or  Amnion;  2.  Kheni,  or  Chemmis;  3.  Mut, 
the  Mother  Goddess ;  4.  Num,  or  Kneph  ; 
5.  Seti,  or  Sate;  6.  Phthah,  the  Artist  God; 
7.  Net,  or  Neith,  the  Goddess  of  Sais;  8. 
Ra,  the  Sun,  the  God  of  Heliopolis.  Ac- 
cording to  Wilkinson,  they  are  classed  in  a 
different  order:  i.  Neph,  or  Kneph;  2. 
Anuni,  or  Ammon;  3.  Phthah;  4.  Khem ; 
5.  Sate;  6.  Maut,  or  Mut ;  7.  Pasht,  or  Diana; 


RELIGION  AND    MYTHOLOGY. 


91 


8.  Neith,  or  Miner\-a.  In  Wilkinson's  list, 
Paslit,  or  Diana,  is  classed  in  the  first  order 
instead  of  the  second,  while  Ra  is  not  classed 
ill  this  series. 

Amnion,  or  Amun,  was  "the  Revealer," 
"the  Concealed  God,"  "the  Absolute 
Spirit,"  "the  Father  of  all  the  other  gods;" 
corresponding  to  the  Zeus  of  the  Greeks. 
He  is  stj'led  "the  King  of  the  Gods,"  "  the 
L,ord  of  Heaven,"  "the  Ruler,"  "the  Lord 
of  the  Two  Thrones, "  "  the  Horus  or  God 
of  the  Two  Egjpts. ' '  His  city  was  Thebes. 
Manetho  saj's  his  name  signifies  conceal- 
ment. The  root  " Anin"  signifies  to  veil 
or  conceal.  His  original  name,  as  standing 
in  the  rings  of  the  Twelfth  Dynasty,  was 
Amu.  After  the  Eighteenth  Dynasty  he 
was  called  Amn-Ra,  signifj'ing  the  Sun. 
Says  Bunseii:  "Incontestably,  he  stands  in 
EgA'pt  as  the  head  of  the  great  cosmogonic 
development." 

Kneph,  the  God  of  Spirit,  was  also  called 
Knubis,  or  Num.  His  name,  according  to 
Plutarch  and  Diodorus,  means  Spirit.  At 
Esna  he  was  called  ' '  the  Breath  of  those  in 
the  Firmament."  At  Elephantine  he  was 
styled  "Lord  of  the  Inundations."  He  is 
represented  as  wearing  the  ram's  head  with 
double  horns,  and  was  universally  worshiped 
in  Ethiopia.  The  sheep  were  sacred  to  him, 
and  large  flocks  of  them  were  kept  in  the 
Thebais  for  their  wool.  The  serpent  or  asp 
were  also  sacred  to  Kneph.  He  was  called 
Creator,  and  was  represented  in  the  figure  of  a 
potter  with  a  wheel.  In  Philae  he  is  repre- 
sented as  forming  on  his  wheel  a  figure  of 
Osiris,  bearing  the  inscription:  "Num,  who 
fomis  on  his  wheel  the  Divine  Limbs  of 
Osiris. "  He  is  likewise  called  ' '  the  Sculptor 
of  all  meu, "  "  the  god  who  made  the  sun  and 
the  moon  to  revolve."  According  to  Por- 
phyrj-,  Phtliah  sprang  from  an  egg  which 
came  from  the  mouth  of  Kneph,  and  in  this 
declaration  he  is  sustained  by  the  authority 
of  the  monuments.  Phthah  thus  represents 
the  Absolute  Divine  Being  as  Spirit,  the 
Spirit  of  God  mo\-ing  on  the  face  of  the 
waters,  a  moving  spirit  intertwined  and  in- 
terwoven with  the  chaotic  and  shapeless 
mass  of  matter. 


Phthah— called  HephiEstus  by  the  Greeks, 
Vulcan  by  the  Roman.s — represents  creation 
by  the  truth,  fonnation,  stability;  and  is 
called  in  the  inscriptions  "Lord  of  Truth," 
"Lord  of  the  Beautiful  Face,"  "Father  of 
Beginnings,  moving  the  Egg  of  the  Sun  and 
Moon."  Horapollo  and  Plutarch  considered 
the  scarabaeus,  or  beetle,  the  sign  of  this  god, 
as  an  emblem  of  the  world  and  its  creation. 
In  an  inscription  he  is  called  "  Creator  of  all 
things  in  the  world."  Says  lamblicus:  "The 
God  who  creates  with  truth  is  Phthah. ' '  He 
was  also  related  with  the  sun,  having  thirt}- 
fingers,  representing  the  thirty  days  of  the 
month.  He  is  also  represented  as  a  defoniied 
dwarf. 

Khem,  whom  the  Greeks  called  Pan,  the 
principle  of  generation,  is  sometimes  repre- 
sented as  holding  a  plowshare.  Amun  has 
no  female  companion.  Mut,  the  mother, 
is  the  partner  of  Khem,  the  father.  Seti, 
the  Ray  or  Arrow,  a  feminine  figure  with 
the  horns  of  a  cow,  is  the  consort  of  Kneph. 
Neith,  or  Net,  the  Goddess  of  Sals,  is  the 
companion  of  Phthah.  The  Greek  Athene, 
Pallas,  or  Miner\-a,  is  believed  to  be  derived 
from  Neith,  and  her  name  signifies:  ' '  I  came 
by  myself. ' '  Clemens  Alexandrinussaj-s  that 
her  great  shrine  at  Sais  has  an  open  roof 
bearing  this  inscription :  "I  am  all  that  was 
and  is  and  is  to  be,  and  no  mortal  has  lifted 
my  garment,  and  the  fruit  I  bore  is  Helios. ' ' 
This  signifies  her  identity  with  Nature. 

Helios,  or  Ra,  or  Phrah,  the  Sun-god, 
the  God  of  Heliopolis  (City  of  the  Sun),  is 
the  eighth  and  last  of  the  first  order  of  gods, 
according  to  Bunsen.  It  is  from  Ra,  or 
Phrah,  that  the  name  Pharaoh  is  derived. 
As  we  have  already  seen,  Wilkinson  ex- 
cludes Ra  from  the  first  order,  substituting 
Pasht,  or  Bubastis,  the  Diana  of  the  Greeks, 
instead.  If  we  accept  Bunsen's  classifica- 
tion, taking  the  Sun-god  as  the  eighth  and 
last  of  the  first  series,  we  shall  then  see  in 
Amnion,  the  Concealed  God,  the  pure  Spirit, 
from  which  emanates  Kneph,  the  creative 
power;  followed  by  Khem,  the  generative 
power;  followed  by  Phthah,  the  artistic  prin- 
ciple; after  which  come  the  three  feminine 
creative  principles  of  Nature  in  Neith,  the 


92 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— FXrVPT. 


nourishing  principle  in  Mut  the  mother,  the 
developing  principle  in  the  goddess  Pasht, 
and  the  completion  of  the  whole  cycle  in 
Helios,  or  Ra,  or  Phrah,  the  Snn-god. 

The  reason  for  the  difference  between  the 
priestly  and  popular  religions  of  Eg>"pt  is 
to  be  attributed  to  the  difference  of  race 
origin  between  the  priesthood  and  the 
masses.  The  priests  are  believed  to  have 
been  the  descendants  of  the  Asiatic  immi- 
grants into  the  Nile  valley,  while  the  great 
body  of  the  people  are  supposed  to  have 
been  of  Ethiopian  extradtion.  The  Asiatic 
immigrants  and  conquerors  brought  with 
them  the  spiritual  ideas  represented  by  the 
first  order  of  gods,  while  the  Ethiopian  oc- 
cupiers of  the  Nile  valley  held  fast  to  the 
African  instindl  of  nature- worship.  The 
combination  of  these  two  principles  fonned 
the  Egyptian  religious  system.  The  first 
order  of  gods  was  therefore  for  the  priests, 
the  initiated;  the  third  order  was  for  the 
people,  the  uninitiated;  while  the  second 
order  was  a  transition  between  the  first  and 
third — children  of  the  first  and  parents  of 
the  third. 

As  we  have  said,  the  second  order  of 
Egyptian  gods  was  incorporated  into  the 
Greek  pantheon.  Thus  Khonso,  the  child 
of  Ammon,  was  the  same  as  the  Greek  Her- 
cules, God  of  Strength;  Thoth,  child  of 
Kneph,  was  the  equivalent  of  the  Greek 
Hennes,  God  of  Knowledge;  Pecht,  child 
of  Phthah,  was  represented  by  the  Greek 
Artemis,  or  Diana,  the  Goddess  of  Birth, 
who  prote(fled  women;  Athor,  or  Hathor, 
was  the  same  as  the  Grecian  Aphrodite,  or 
Venus,  the  Goddess  of  Love;  Seb  was  the 
Greek  Kronos,  or  Saturn,  the  God  of  Time; 
and  Nutpe  was  the  Grecian  Rhea,  the  wife 
of  Kronos. 

The  third  order  of  gods  were  the  children 
of  the  second  order,  and  were  manifestations 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  the  external  universe. 
These,  as  we  have  said,  were  the  popular 
gods,  though  worshiped  by  the  untutored 
masses.  The  gods  of  the  third  class,  though 
lowest  in  the  scale,  had  more  of  individuality 
and  personality  about  them,  and  their  wor- 
ship throughout  Egypt  was  universal  from 


thenio.st  remote  antiquity.  Says  Herodotus: 
"The  Osiris  deities  are  the  only  gods  wor- 
shiped throughout  Egypt."  Says  Bun.sen: 
"They  stand  on  the  oldest  monuments,  are 
the  center  of  all  Egyptian  worship,  and  are 
perhaps  the  oldest  original  obje(5ls  of  rever- 
ence." Wilkinson  says  the  only  change  in 
the  EgA'ptian  religious  system  was  during 
the  fourteenth  century'  before  Christ,  when 
Amun,  or  Ammon,  was  made  chief  of  the 
third  class  of  gods,  in  place  of  Typhon,  or 
Seth,  the  God  of  Destru(5tion,  who  had  pre- 
viousU'  held  the  first  place  and  had  been 
the  most  highly  reverenced  of  the  popular 
deities.  Seth's  name  was  then  chiseled  off 
the  monuments,  and  Amun's  substituted  in- 
stead. This  religious  revolution  was  the 
final  result  of  the  amalgamation  of  the  two 
races  and  religions  in  Egj'pt — the  Asiatic 
Semitic  and  Aryan  immigrants,  with  their 
higher  spiritual  ideas,  and  the  Ethiopian 
Hamitic  aborigines,  with  their  gross  African 
nature-worship.  It  was  very  natural  that 
the  priests,  the  descendants  of  the  Asiatic 
immigrants,  should  place  their  religion 
above  that  of  the  descendants  of  the  abo- 
riginal inhabitants,  and  that  they  should 
have  permitted  for  a  time  the  external  wor- 
ship until  the  public  was  prepared  for  the 
reception  of  a  higher  religious  faith  in  the 
.substitution  of  Amun,  the  Revealer,  for  the 
God  of  Terror  and  Destruction. 

The  most  popular  of  ancient  Egyptian 
myths  was  that  of  Osiris  and  Isis,  as  given 
us  by  Plutarch.  Seb  and  Nutpe,  or  Nut — the 
Kronos  and  Rhea  of  the  Greeks,  the  Saturn 
and  C^'bele  of  the  Romans — were  the  parents 
of  the  third  group  of  deities.  Seb  is  Time, 
and  Nut  is  Space.  The  Sun  pronounced  a 
curse  upon  them,  in  not  permitting  them  to 
be  delivered  on  any  daj'  of  the  year.  This 
symbolizes  the  difficulty  of  the  thought  of 
Creation.  But  Hermes,  or  Wisdom,  who 
loved  Rhea,  won  at  dice,  of  the  Moon,  five 
days,  the  .seventieth  part  of  all  her  illumina- 
tions, which  he  added  to  the  three  hundred 
and  .sixty  days,  or  twelve  months.  This  im- 
plies the  corredlion  of  the  calendar.  The  five 
days  added  were  the  birthdays  of  the  gods. 
Osiris  was  born  on  the  first  of  these  five  days, 


THE  HATHOR  TEMPLE  OE  DENDERAH. 


RF.I.ICION    AND    lUVT/m/.OCV. 


93 


when  a  voice  proclaimed:  "  The  Lord  of  all 
things  is  now  horn."  Arneris-ApoUo,  the 
elder  Horus,  was  born  on  the  second  of 
these  days  ;  Tj-phon  on  the  third;  Isis  on 
the  fourth ;  Nepthys- Venus,  or  V'ictory,  on 
the  fifth.  Osiris  and  Arueris  were  children 
of  the  Sun;  Isis  was  the  daughter  of  Hermes; 
and  Typhou  and  Nepthys  were  children  of 
Kronos,  or  Saturn,  the  God  of  Time. 

Osiris  took  Isis  for  his  wife,  and  went 
through  the  world  civilizing  and  refining 
mankind  by  means  of  music,  poetry  and  ora- 
tory. On  his  return  Tj-phon  took  seventj-- 
two  men  and  likewise  an  Ethiopian  queen 
and  construdled  an  ark  as  large  as  the  bod)- 
of  Osiris,  and  at  a  feast  he  offered  it  to  the 
one  whom  it  should  fit.  Osiris  got  into  the 
ark,  and  thej-  closed  the  lid  and  soldered  it 
fast,  after  which  they  cast  the  ark  into  the 
Nile.  Then  Isis,  putting  on  mourning,  went 
to  look  for  the  ark.  As  her  inquiries  were 
made  to  little  children,  these  were  thought 
by  the  Egyptians  to  possess  the  power  of 
divination.  She  then  found  Anubis,  child  of 
Osiris  by  Nepthys,  wife  of  Typhon,  who  in- 
formed her  that  the  ark  was  entangled  in  a 
tree  which  grew  up  around  it  and  concealed 
it  from  view.  The  king  construdled  from 
this  tree  a  pillar  to  support  his  house.  Isis 
sat  down  and  wept,  whereupon  the  queen's 
women  came  to  her,  and  she  stroked  their 
hair,  thus  causing  fragrance  to  pass  into  it. 
She  became  nurse  to  the  queen's  child,  feed- 
ing him  with  her  finger,  and  burning  his 
impurities  by  means  of  a  lambent  flame  dur- 
ing the  night-time.  After  this  she  converted 
herself  into  a  swallow,  and  flying  around 
the  house,  bewailed  her  fate.  The  queen 
watched  her  proceedings  and  cried  out  in 
alarm,  thus  depriving  her  child  of  immortal- 
ity. Isis  then  begged  the  pillar,  and  taking 
it  down,  took  out  the  chest  and  cried  so 
loud  as  to  frighten  the  king's  younger 
son  to  death.  Then  taking  the  ark  and  the 
king's  elder  .son  she  sailed  away.  Being 
chilled  by  the  cold  air  of  the  river  she  be- 
came angry  and  cursed  it,  so  that  it  became 
drj-.  Then  opening  the  chest,  she  put  her 
cheek  to  the  cheek  of  Osiris,  weeping  bit- 
terly.    The  little  boy  coming  and  peeping 


into  the  chest,  she  gave  him  such  a  terrible 
look  as  to  frighten  him  to  death.  Then 
Isis  went  to  her  son  Horus,  who  was  at 
nurse  at  Buto.  Typhon,  while  hunting  by 
moonlight,  saw  the  ark,  with  the  body  of 
Osiris,  which  he  tore  into  fourteen  pieces 
and  cast  them  around.  Isis  went  in  a  boat 
made  of  papjrus  to  look  for  the  parts  of  her 
hu.sband's  body,  and  finding  them,  buried 
them  all  in  different  places.  The  soul  of 
Osiris  then  returned  from  Hades  to  train  up 
his  son,  Horus.  Then  Horus  conquered  T>-- 
phon  in  battle,  but  Isis  allowed  Tjphon  to 
make  his  escape.  It  is  also  said  that  Isis 
had  another  son  bj'  the  soul  of  Osiris  after 
his  death,  the  god  Harpocrates,  who  is  rep- 
resented as  lame  and  with  his  finger  on  his 
mouth,  signifying  childhood. 

Plutarch  says  that  Osiris  afterward  became 
Serapis,  the  Pluto  of  the  under- world.  Plu- 
tarch, in  explanation  of  the  myth  of  Osiris 
and  Isis,  says  that  0.siris  is  the  personification 
of  Water,  especially  the  Nile,  and  that 
Isis  is  the  Earth,  especially  the  Nile  valley 
of  Egypt  overflowed  by  the  river.  Horus, 
the  son,  is  the  Air,  especially  the  moist,  mild 
air  of  Egypt.  Typhon  is  Fire,  especially 
the  summer  heat  which  dries  up  the  Nile  and 
parches  the  land.  His  seventy-two  com- 
panions are  the  seventy-two  da^'s  of  most 
intense  heat,  as  viewed  by  the  Egyptians. 
Nepthys,  Typhon's  wife,  sister  of  Isis,  is  the 
Desert  out  of  Egypt,  but  which,  when  over- 
flowed by  a  higher  inundation  of  the  Nile, 
becomes  productive  and  has  a  child  by  Osiris, 
named  Anubis.  The  confinement  of  Osiris 
in  the  ark  signifies  the  summer  heat  dr>'ing 
up  the  Nile  and  confining  it  to  its  channel. 
The  entanglement  of  the  ark  in  a  tree  means 
the  division  of  the  Nile  into  many  mouths 
at  the  Delta  and  the  overhanging  of  the 
river  by  the  wood.  Isis  nunsing  the  king's 
child,  the  fragrance,  etc.,  signifies  the  nour- 
ishment of  plants  and  animals  by  the  earth. 
The  tearing  of  the  body  of  Osiris  into  four- 
teen parts  by  Typhon  means  either  the  divis- 
ion of  the  Nile  at  its  mouths  or  the  pools  of 
water  left  after  the  inundation  has  dried  up. 

Besides  this  geographical  explanation  of 
this  allegory,  Plutarch  gives  a  scientific  and 


94 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


astronomical  view.  Thus  Osiris  is  the  pro- 
dudlive  and  creative  principle  in  nature. 
Isisis  the  feminine  quality  in  nature,  and  for 
this  reason  is  called  by  Plato  the  nurse.  Ty- 
phon  is  the  destructive  principle  in  nature. 
Horus  is  the  mediator  between  creation  and 
destru(5lion.  This  gives  us  the  triad  of  Osi- 
ris, Typhon  and  Horus,  corresponding  to 
the  Hindoo  triad  of  Brahma,  Siva  and  Vish- 
nu, and  likewise  to  the  Persian  triad  of  Or- 
mazd,  Ahriman  and  Mithra.  In  this  way 
the  Egyptian  myth  symbolizes  the  struggle 
between  the  principles  of  good  and  evil  in 
the  world  of  nature. 

The  priests  sought  to  turn  the  worship  of 
Osiris  and  Isis  into  an  allegory-  of  the  strug- 
gles, trials,  sorrows  and  self-recovery  of  the 
human  soul.  After  death  every  human  soul 
adopted  the  name  and  symbols  of  Osiris, 
after  which  he  retired  to  the  under- world, 
there  to  be  judged  by  that  god.  Closely  re- 
lated with  this  was  the  dodlrine  of  the  soul's 
transmigration  through  various  bodies — 
which  dodlrine  Pythagoras  brought  from 
Egypt.  These  do(5lrines  were  taught  in  the 
My.steries.  Herodotus  says  :  "I  know  them, 
but  must  not  tell  them."  lamblicus,  in  his 
work  on  the  Mysteries,  says  that  they  taught 
that  One  God  existed  before  all  things,  and 
that  this  One  God  was  to  be  venerated  in 
silence.  Then  Emeph  or  Neph  was  god  in 
his  self-con.sciousness.  After  this  in  Aniun 
his  mind  became  truth,  diffusing  light. 
Phthah  represents  truth  working  b^'  art, 
and  Osiris  symbolizes  art  producing  good. 

Bunsen  says  that  according  to  the  monu- 
ments Osiris  and  Isis,  besides  emanating 
from  the  second  order  of  gods,  are  them- 
selves the  first  and  second  order.  Osiris, 
Isis  and  Horus  embrace  all  Egyptian  my- 
thology, excepting  Amun  and  Neph.  In 
Lower  Egypt  Phthah  was  the  highest  god, 
corresponding  to  the  Greek  Hephaestus,  the 
Roman  Vulcan,  the  god  of  fire  or  heat,  the 
father  of  the  sun.  In  Upper  Egj'pt  Amun 
was  the  chief  god.  According  to  Manetho, 
Phthah  reigned  nine  thousand  years  before 
the  other  gods,  signifying  that  this  was  the 
oldest  worship  in  Egypt.  Amun  is  the  head 
of  a   cosmogony   proceeding  by  emanation 


from  spirit  to  matter,  while  Phthah  is  at  the 
origin  of  a  cosmogony  a.scending  by  evolu- 
tion from  matter  to  spirit.  From  Phthah, 
or  heat,  comes  light;  from  light  comes  life; 
from  life  proceed  gods,  men,  plants,  animals 
and  all  organic  existence.  In  the  inscrip- 
tions Phthah  is  called,  "Father  of  the  Father 
of  the  Gods,"  "Kingof  both  Worlds,"  "God 
of  all  Beginnings,  "  "  Former  of  Things. ' ' 
The  egg,  as  containing  the  germ  of  life,  is 
one  of  his  symbols.  The  scarabaeus,  or 
beetle,  which  rolls  its  ball  of  earth,  supposed 
to  contain  its  egg,  is  sacred  to  Phthah. 
Memphis  was  his  sacred  city.  His  son,  Ra, 
the  Sun-god,  had  his  temples  at  On,  which 
the  Greeks  called  Heliopolis,  meaning  "City 
of  the  Sun, ' '  so  named  from  Ra's  Greek  name 
Helios.  The  cat  was  sacred  to  Ra.  As 
Phthah  is  the  god  of  all  beginnings  in 
Lower  Egypt,  so  Ra  is  the  life-giving  god, 
the  adlive  ruler  of  the  world,  holding  in  one 
hand  a  sceptre  and  in  the  other  the  symbol 
of  life. 

The  goddesses  of  Lower  Egypt  were 
Neith  at  Sais,  Leto,  the  goddess  whose  tem- 
ple was  at  Buto,  and  Pasht  at  Bubastis.  As 
we  have  already  said,  the  chief  god  in  Up- 
per Egypt  was  Amun,  or  Amnion,  the  Con- 
cealed God;  and  next  to  him  is  Kiiepli,  or 
Knubis,  the  vSpirit  of  God.  Their  compan- 
ions were  Mut,  the  mother,  and  Khonso. 
The  two  oldest  gods  were  Mentu,  the  rising 
sini,  and  Atmu,  the  setting  sun. 

In  Egypt,  as  in  Greece,  the  earliest  wor- 
ship was  of  local  divinities,  who  were  after- 
wards united  in  a  Pantheon.  As  in  Greece 
Zeus  was  at  first  worshiped  in  Dodona  and 
Arcadia,  Apollo  in  Crete  and  Delos,  Aphro- 
dite in  Cyprus,  Athene  at  Athens,  and  after- 
wards these  local  deities  were  united  in  one 
company  as  the  twelve  great  gods  of  Olym- 
pus, so  in  Egypt  the  different  early  theol- 
ogies were  combined  in  the  three  orders 
of  gods,  with  Amnion  at  their  head.  But 
in  Eg>'pt,  as  in  Greece,  each  cit_\-  and  dis- 
tridl  retained  the  special  worship  of  its  own 
local  deity.  As  in  Greece  Athene  contin- 
ued to  be  the  protedling  goddess  of  Athens, 
and  Aphrodite  of  Cyprus,  so,  in  Eg>-pt,  vSet 
continued  to  be  the  god  of  Ombos,  Leto  of 


KF.I.IGION   AND    JlIVniOLOGY. 


95 


Buto,  Horus  of  Edfii,  Kheiii  of  Coptos,  etc. 

The  oue  great  sing^ular  feature  about  the 
Egyptian  religion  was  animal-worship.  He- 
rodotus saj's :  "All  animals  in  Egypt  are 
accounted  sacred,  and  if  any  one  kills  the.se 
animals  willfully  he  is  put  to  death."  This 
account  of  Herodotus  is  not  stridlly  corre(5l, 
as  many  animals  were  not  considered  sacred, 
though  most  of  them  were.  Wilkinson  men- 
tions more  than  one  hundred  Egyptian  ani- 
mals, over  one-half  of  which  number  were 
sacred.  Hunting  and  fishing  being  favorite 
amusements  of  the  Egyptians,  the  killing  of 
some  animals  must  have  been  tolerated.  If, 
however,  anj'  one  killed  any  of  the  sacred 
animals,  either  accidentally  or  willfulh%  he 
was  immediately  put  to  death.  In  different 
parts  of  Egypt  different  animals  were  ac- 
counted sacred.  Besides  the  sacred  bull  at 
Memphis,  the  most  striking  sacred  animals 
were  the  Mnevis,  or  sacred  calf  at  Heliopolis, 
the  sacred  sheep  at  Sais  and  Thebes,  and  the 
sacred  crocodiles  at  Ombos  and  Arsinoe. 
Thus  the  animal  sacred  in  one  place  was  not 
so  regarded  in  another.  The  cat,  the  ibis 
and  the  beetle  were  particular  objecfts  of  wor- 
ship. The  death  of  a  cat  in  a  private  house 
caused  the  whole  family  to  shave  their  ej-e- 
brows  in  token  of  their  grief  The  Persian 
king  Cambyses  was  enabled  to  conquer  the 
Egyptians  by  placing  in  the  van  of  his 
army  multitudes  of  cats,  which  the  Egyp- 
tians were  fearful  of  killing,  so  that  they 
abandoned  all  resistance. 

Cows  were  sacred  to  Isis,  and  this  god- 
dess was  represented  in  the  form  of  a  cow. 
The  gods  often  wore  animals'  heads.  Am- 
un  is  represented  with  the  ram's  head.  The 
worship  of  Apis,  the  sacred  bull  of  Memphis, 
the  representative  of  Osiris,  was  one  of  the 
most  striking  and  imposing  among  Egyp- 
tian religious  ceremonies.  Plutarch  describes 
him  as  a  fair  and  beautiful  image  of  the  soul 
of  Osiris.  He  was  a  bull  with  black  hair, 
a  white  spot  on  his  forehead,  and  some  other 
distinguishing  marks.  He  was  kept  in  a 
magnificent  temple  at  Memphis.  The  fes- 
tival in  his  honor  continued  seven  days, 
during  which  time  a  great  multitude  of 
people  as.sembled.     When  he  died  his  body 


was  embalmed  and  buried  with  great  pomp, 
and  the  priests  went  in  quest  of  another 
Apis,  which,  when  discovered  by  the  dis- 
tinguishing marks,  was  taken  to  Mem- 
phis, fed  with  care  and  exerci.sed,  and  con- 
sulted as  an  oracle.  The  burial-place  of  the 
sacred  bulls  was  in  recent  years  discovered 
near  Memphis.  It  consists  of  an  arched 
gallery  cut  in  the  solid  rock,  two  thousand 
feet  long,  twenty-five  feet  high  and  twenty- 
five  feet  wide.  On  each  side  is  a  .series  of 
recesses,  each  of  which  contains  a  large  sar- 
cophagus of  granite,  fifteen  bj'  eight  feet,  in 
which  the  body  of  a  sacred  bull  was  depos- 
ited. In  1852  thirty  of  these  had  been  dis- 
covered. Before  this  tomb  is  a  paved  road, 
with  lions  in  rows  on  each  side,  and  before 
this  is  a  temple  with  a  vestibule.  As  we  have 
previously  remarked,  the  animals  sacred  in 
one  place  were  not  so  regarded  in  another, 
and  this  difference  of  worship  often  led  to 
bitter  enmities  between  the  several  nomes. 
Thus  at  Ombos  the  crocodile  was  wor- 
shiped, while  at  Tentyra  it  was  hunted  and 
abhorred.  The  ram-headed  Aniun  was 
adored  at  Thebes,  and  the  sheep  was  there 
a  sacred  animal,  while  the  goat  was  killed 
for  food.  In  Mendes  the  goat  was  worshiped 
and  the  sheep  killed  and  eaten.  Mutton  was 
likewise  eaten  at  Lycopolis,  in  compliment 
to  the  wolf,  which  was  there  an  objecft  of 
veneration. 

The  sacred  animals  at  death  were  em- 
balmed by  the  priests  and  buried,  and 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  mummies  of 
dogs,  cats,  wolves,  sheep,  crocodiles,  birds 
and  other  animals  are  found  in  the  tombs. 
The  sacred  animals  were  reverenced  as  con- 
taining a  divine  element.  Says  Wilkinson: 
"The  Egyptians  may  have  deified  some 
animals  to  insure  their  preser\^ation,  some 
to  prevent  their  unwholesome  meat  being 
used  as  food."  The  cow,  the  ox,  the  dog, 
the  cat,  the  ibis,  appeared  to  the  Egyptians 
as  gifted  with  supernatural  powers.  This 
people  reverenced  the  mysterious  manifesta- 
tion of  the  Divine  presence  in  all  external 
nature.  Animals  were  considered  expres- 
sions of  Divine  thoughts.  This  belief 
reached  its  extreme  point  in  the  Egyptian 


96 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


reverence  for  animal  life.     This  people  saw 
something  divine  and  found  Deity  in  nature. 

The  Egyptians  had  more  religious  festi- 
vals than  any  other  ancient  people,  everj' 
month  and  day  being  governed  by  a  god. 
There  were  two  feasts  of  the  New  Year; 
twelve  of  the  first  days  of  the  months;  one 
of  the  rising  of  the  dog-star;  and  others  to 
the  great  gods,  to  seed  time  and 
harvest,  to  the  rise  and  fall  of  the 
Nile,  as  the  nine  days'  feast  in 
honor  of  Osiris,  the  Benefadlor  of 
men.  The  feast  of  the  lamps  at 
Sais  was  in  honor  of  Neith,  and 
was  observed  throughout  Egypt. 
Other  noted  festivals  were  the 
feast  of  the  death  of  Osiris,  and 
the  feast  of  his  resurrecflion,  when 
the  people  exclaimed:  "We  have 
found  him!  Good  luck!"  One 
of  the  feasts  of  Isis  lasted  four 
days.  The  great  feast  at  Bubastis 
was  the  most  noted  of  all  the 
Egyptian  festivals.  On  one  of 
these  occasions  seven  hundred 
thousand  persons  sailed  on  the 
Nile  with  nui.sic.  At  another 
blood}-  conflicts  occurred  betu'een 
the  armed  priests  and  the  armed  men  who 
conveyed  the  image  of  the  god  to  the  temple. 

The  daily  life  of  the  people  was  an  em- 
bodiment of  the  history  of  the  deities.     The 


the  bird  Weiniu  took  place ;  on  the  four- 
teenth of  Toby  no  voluptuous  songs  must 
be  listened  to,  for  Isis  and  Nepthys  bewail 
Osiris  on  that  day.  On  the  third  of  Mechir 
no  one  can  go  on  a  journey,  becau.se  Set 
then  began  a  war. ' '  None  must  go  out  on 
another  specified  day.  The  day  on  which 
the  other  gods  conquered  Set  was  regarded 


EGYPTI.\N    PRIESTS. 

as  lucky,  and  the  child  born  on  that  day  was 

believed  to  be  sure  to  live  to  a  good  old  age. 

The  priests,  of  which  every  temple  had 

its  own  separate  body,  did  not  fonn  an  ex- 


SACRED   WOMEN. 


French  Eg3ptologist,  De  Rouge,  describes 
an  old  papyrus  which  says:  "On  the  twelfth 
of  Chorak  no  one  is  to  go  out  of  doors,  for 
on  that  day  the  transformation  of  Osiris  into 


elusive  caste,  though  the  priestly  office  was 
generally  continued  by  inheritance  in  cer- 
tain families.  Priests  could  be  militant  com- 
manders,  provincial    governors,  judges    oi 


RELIGION   AND    MYTIIOI.OCY. 


97 


architecfls.  The  sons  of  soldiers  were  often 
priests,  while  soldiers  frequently  married 
daughters  of  priests.  Josejih,  who  was  a 
foreigner  naturalized  in  Eg>pt,  married  the 
daughter  of  the  High  Priest  of  On,  or  Heli- 
opolis.  The  Eg>'ptian  priests  were  of  differ- 
ent grades — the  chief  priests,  or  pontiffs, 
the  prophets,  the  judges,  the  scribes,  those 
who  examined  \ic5tims,  the  keepers  of  the 
robes,  the  keepers  of  the  sacred  animals,  and 
others.  Women  also  performed  official  du- 
ties in  the  temples. 

The  priests  were  exempt  from  taxation 
and  were  supported  out  of  the  public  stores. 
Their  duties  were  to  superintend  sacrifices, 
processions,  funerals,  etc.  They  were  ini- 
tiated into  all  the  religious  mysteries,  and 
were  taught  sur\-eying.  They  were  par- 
ticular as  to  their  food,  refraining  from  eat- 
ing peas,  beans,  onions  and  garlic,  while 
fish  and  swine-fle.sh  were  stridlly  forbidden. 
They  bathed  twice  a  day  and  twice  during 
the  night,  and  shaved  the  head  and  body 
every  third  day.  Their  fasts,  which  lasted 
from  one  to  six  weeks,  took  place  after  their 
purification.  The\'  offered  prayers  for  the 
dead. 

The  priestly  dress  was  simple,  made 
chiefly  of  linen,  and  consi.sted  of  an  under- 
garment and  a  loose  upper  robe,  with  full 
sleeves,  and  the  leopard-skin  above;  while 
sometimes  there  were  one  or  two  feathers  in 
the  head. 

Chaplets  and  flowers  were  placed  upon 
the  altars,  such  as  the  lotus  and  papyrus; 
likewise  baskets  of  figs  and  grapes,  and  ala- 
baster vases  of  ointment.  Necklaces,  brace- 
lets and  jewelrj-  were  also  offered  as  invoca- 
tions and  thanksgivings. 

Oxen  and  other  animals  were  offered  as 
.sacrifices,  and  the  blood  was  permitted  to 
flow  over  the  altar.  Incense  was  offered  to 
all  the  gods  and  goddesses  in  censers. 

Religious  processions  were  another  char- 
a.cfleristic  feature  of  the  EgV'ptian  system. 
In  one  of  these  shrines  were  carried  on  the 
shoulders  by  means  of  long  staves  passed 
through  rings.  In  others  the  statues  of 
the  gods  were  carried,  and  arks  o\'er- 
shadowed  bj'  the  wings  of  the  Goddess  of 


Truth  were  spread  over  the  sacred   beetle. 

The  most  highly  esteemed  of  the  priestly 
order  were  the  prophets,  who  studied  the 
ten  hieratical  books.  The  stolists  dre.ssed 
and  undressed  the  images,  attended  to  the 
vestments  of  the  priests,  and  marked  the 
beasts  chosen  for  sacrifice.  The  .scribes 
served  for  the  Apis,  or  sacred  bull,  and  their 
chief  requirement  was  great  learning. 

The  priests,  who.se  life  was  full  of  duties 
and  restricflions,  had  only  one  wife,  and 
were  circumcised  like  other  Egyptians. 
They  devoted  all  their  time  to  study  or  re- 
ligious service.  The  gloomy  character  of 
the  Egyptian  religion  was  in  strong  contrast 
with  the  cheerful  worship  of  the  Greeks. 
One  Greek  writer  says:  "The  gods  of  Egypt 
rejoice  in  lamentations,  those  of  Greece  in 
dances."  Another  says:  "  The  Egyptians 
offer  their  gods  tears. ' ' 

The  Egyptian  temples  surpassed  in  grand- 
eur all  other  architecflural  monuments  in  the 
world.  The  temple  of  Amun,  in  the  fertile 
oasis  of  Siwah,  in  the  Libyan  desert,  was 
one  of  the  most  celebrated  oracles  of  anti- 
quity. Near  this  temple,  in  a  grove  of  palm- 
trees,  rose  a  hot  spring,  the  Fountain  of  the 
Sun,  whose  bubbling  and  smoking  were  be- 
lieved to  betoken  the  Divine  presence.  The 
oasis  was  a  stopping-place  for  caravans  pass- 
ing between  Egypt  and  Central  Africa,  and 
many  rich  offerings  were  left  in  the  temple 
by  traveling  merchants,  who  thus  .showed 
their  gratitude  for  e.scaping  the  perils  of  the 
desert,  or  thus  sought  the  favor  of  Amun 
for  their  journey  when  just  begun. 

The  immortality  of  the  .soul  and  the  be- 
lief in  a  future  state,  based  on  rewards  and 
punishments  for  good  or  evil  in  this  life, 
formed  a  cardinal  point  of  Egyptian  relig- 
ious faith  from  the  earlie.st  period;  and  the 
belief  in  the  transmigration  of  the  soul  was 
clo.sely  connetled  with  the  reverence  for  ani- 
mals. Bun.sen  says  the  Egyptians  viewed 
the  human  soul  and  the  animal  .soul  as  the 
same,  and  for  this  reason  the  animal  was 
considered  sacred  to  man.  The  Egyptian 
dodtrine  of  transmigration  differed  from  that 
of  the  Hindoos  in  one  es.sential  point;  there 
being  no  idea  of  retribution  in  the  Egyptian 


98 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


doclrine,  as  in  the  Hindoo.  The  Egyptian 
docftrine,  according  to  Herodotus,  was  that 
every  human  soul  must  pass  through  all 
animals,  fishes,  insedls  and  birds,  thus  com- 
pleting the  whole  circuit  of  animated  exist- 
ence, after  which  it  would  again  enter  the 
human  body  from  which  it  came.  The 
Hindoo  doctrine  regards  transmigration  as  a 
punishment  for  sin  and  wickedness,  and 
that  only  those  who  lead  an  unholy  life 
are  subjected  to  this  punishment,  from  which 
the  only  release  is  the  leading  of  a  pure  and 
holy  life.  Herodotus  further  says  that  the 
complete  circuit  of  transmigration  is  per- 
formed by  the  soul  in  three  thousand  years, 
and  that  it  does  not  begin  until  the  body  de- 
cay's. This  explains  the  extraordinary  care 
taken  in  ornamenting  the  tombs,  as  the  per- 
manent resting-places  for  the  dead  during  a 
long  period.  Diodorus  says  that  the  Egyp- 
tians ornamented  their  tombs  as  the  endur- 
ing residences  of  mankind.  The  dodlrine 
of  transmigration  also  accounts  for  the  cus- 
tom of  embalming  the  dead,  in  order  to  pre- 
ser\-e  the  body  from  decay,  and  to  render  it 
fit  to  receive  the  soul  on  its  return. 

Mr.  Birch  says  that  the  docftrine  of  the 
soul's  immortality  is  as  old  as  the  inscrip- 
tions of  the  Twelfth  Dynasty,  of  which 
many  contain  extracts  from  the  Ritual  for 
the  Dead.  Mr.  Birch  has  translated  one 
hundred  and  forty -six  chapters  of  this  Rit-" 
ual  from  the  text  of  the  Turin  Papyrus, 
which  is  the  most  complete  in  Europe. 
Chapters  of  it  are  seen  on  mummy-cases,  on 
mummy-wraps,  on  the  walls  of  tombs,  and 
on  papyri  within  the  sarcophagi.  This 
Ritual  is  the  only  remnant  of  the  Hermetic 
Books  constituting  the  library  of  the  priests. 
This  liturgy  represents  Osiris  and  his  triad 
as  struggling  with  Set  and  his  devils  for  the 
soul  of  the  departed,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Sun-god,  the  .source  of  life. 

The  Egyptians  believed  that  happiness  in 
the  future  state  depended  upon  well-doing 
in  this  life.  As  we  have  seen,  the  belief 
that  the  soul,  after  making  the  circuit  of 
transmigration  through  the  animal  creation, 
would  return  to  the  body  from  which  it  had 
departed,  caused  the  universal  national  cus- 


tom of  embalming  the  dead  to  preserve 
their  bodies  from  decay.  The  period  of 
mourning  for  the  dead  lasted  seventy-two 
days,  during  which  the  body  of  the  deceased 
was  in  the  charge  of  the  embalmers.  After 
the  process  of  embalming  had  been  finished, 
the  mummy  thus  formed  was  returned  to 
the  house  of  its  earthly  abode,  where  its 
friends  kept  it  for  a  month  or  a  year,  and 
where  feasts  were  given  in  its  honor,  it  be- 
ing always  present  in  the  company  of  guests. 
The  mummy,  in  its  stone  chest,  or  sarcopha- 
gus, was  then  carried  in  an  imposing  funeral 
procession  to  the  borders  of  the  sacred  lake, 
where  occured  the  trial  of  the  deceased  by  a 
priestly  tribunal  of  forty-two  judges,  symbol- 
izing the  soul's  trial  before  the  judgment-seat 
of  the  gods  presided  o\'er  by  Osiris.  Masked 
priests  represented  the  gods  of  the  under- 
world. Typhon  is  represented  as  accusing 
the  deceased  and  demanding  his  punish- 
ment. The  intercessors  plead  for  him.  Any 
one  was  at  liberty  to  bring  accusations 
against  the  deceased.  A  large  pair  of  scales 
was  brought  forward,  on  one  side  of  which 
was  placed  the  conduct  of  the  deceased  in  a 
bottle,  and  on  the  other  side  was  set  the 
image  of  truth.  If  it  was  clearly  shown 
that  the  deceased  had  led  an  evil  life,  the 
priestly  judges  pronounced  an  unfavorable 
verdicft  upon  it  as  to  its  future  fate,  in  which 
case  the  body  was  denied  the  privilege  of 
burial  with  the  just  opposite  the  sacred  lake 
and  was  returned  to  its  friends,  who  usually 
buried  it  on  the  side  of  the  sacred  lake  op- 
posite the  resting-place  of  the  just.  If, 
howe^•er,  the  verdi(fl  of  the'judges  was  {■ax- 
orable,  the  lamentations  of  the  funeral  train 
gave  way  to  songs  of  triumph,  and  the  de- 
ceased was  congratulated  upon  being  admit- 
ted into  the  happy  companionship  of  the 
friends  of  Osiris;  and  the  body  in  its  sar- 
cophagus was  ferried  across  the  sacred  lake 
and  interred  with  those  of  its  ancestors  in  a 
tomb  richly  ornamented.  These  ceremonies 
are  represented  on  the  funeral  papyri.  The 
forty-two  judges  who  tried  the  dead  repre- 
sented the  forty-two  nomes,  or  provinces  of 
Eg^'pt;  and  every  nome  had  its  sacred  lake, 
across   which  all   funeral   processions  must 


RELIGION   AND    MYTHOLOGY. 


99 


pass  on  their  way  to  the  citj-  of  the  dead. 
On  the  sides  of  these  sacred  lakes  nearest  the 
abodes  of  the  living  have  been  found  the 
remains  of  great  numbers  who  were  rejecfled 
by  the  judges  at  their  trial,  and  whose 
bodies  were  in  consequence  returned  in  dis- 
grace to  their  friends,  to  be  disposed  of  in 
the  most  speedy  manner  possible.  At  death 
all  became  equal,  and  every  one,  from  the 
king  and  highest  pontiff  to  the  lowest  swine- 
herd, was  subject  to  the  same  .solemn  judg- 
ment passed  at  death,  and  the  fear  which  it 
inspired  exercised  a  wholesome  influence 
over  all  cla.sses. 

The  soul's  trial  before  the  judgment-seat 
of  the  gods,  as  represented  in  the  papyrus 
Book  of  the  Dead,  and  before  which  the 
soul  had  to  pass  an  acquittal  before  it  could 
enter  the  abode  of  the  blessed,  is  described 
as  follows:  Forty-two  gods  occupj-  the  judg- 
ment-seat, over  which  Osiris  presides,  and 
before  whom  are  the  scales,  in  one  of  which 
is  placed  the  statue  of  perfect  Justice,  while 
in  the  other  is  the  heart  of  the  deceased. 
The  soul  of  the  departed  stands  watching 
the  balance,  while  Horus  examines  the 
plummet  showing  on  which  side  the  beam 
inclines;  and  Thoth,  the  Justifier,  records 
the  sentence.  If  the  decision  of  this  divine 
tribunal  is  favorable,  the  soul  is  sealed  as 
"justified." 

The  Hall  of  the  Two  Truths,  described  in 
the  Book  of  the  Dead,  recounts  the  scene 
when  the  soul  appears  before  the  gods, 
forty-two  of  whom  are  ready  to  feed  on  the 
blood  of  the  wicked.  The  soul,  addressing 
the  Lord  of  Truth,  denies  having  done  evil, 
saying:  "I  have  not  afflicted  any.  I  have 
not  told  falsehoods.  I  ha\e  not  made  the 
laboring  man  do  more  than  his  ta.sk.  I 
have  not  been  idle.  I  have  not  murdered. 
I  have  not  committed  fraud.  I  have  not 
injured  the  images  of  the  gods.  I  have  not 
taken  scraps  of  the  bandages  of  the  dead. 
I  have  not  committed  adulter^-.  I  have  not 
cheated  by  false  weights.  I  have  not  kept 
milk  from  sucklings.  I  have  not  caught 
the  sacred  birds."  He  then  says  to  each 
god:  "I  have  not  been  idle.  I  have  not 
boasted.      I  have  not  stolen.     I  have  not 


counterfeited,  nor  killed  the  sacred  beasts, 
nor  blasphemed,  nor  refused  to  hear  the 
truth,  nor  despi.sed  God  in  my  heart."  In 
other  texts  the  soul  is  represented  as  .saying: 
"  I  have  loved  God.  I  have  given  bread  to 
the  hungry,  water  to  the  thirsty,  garments 
to  the  naked,  and  an  a.sylum  to  the  aban- 
doned." 

Many  of  the  virtues  taught  by  Christi- 
anity appear  to  have  been  the  ideal  of  the 
ancient  Egyptians.  Brugsch  tells  us  that  a 
thousand  voices  from  the  tombs  declare  this. 
One  inscription  in  Upper  Egv'pt  .says:  "He 
loved  his  father,  he  honored  his  mother,  he 
loved  his  brethren,  and  never  went  from  his 
home  in  bad  temper.  He  never  preferred 
the  great  man  to  the  low  one."  Another 
saj^s:  "I  was  a  wise  man,  my  soul  loved 
God.  I  was  a  brother  to  the  great  men  and 
a  father  to  the  humble  ones,  and  never  was 
a  mischief-maker."  An  inscription  at  Sais, 
on  a  priest  who  lived  in  the  days  of  Cam- 
byses,  says:  "I  honored  my  father,  I  es- 
teemed my  mother,  I  loved  my  brothers.  I 
found  graves  for  the  unburied  dead.  I  in- 
structed little  children.  I  took  care  of 
orphans  as  though  they  were  my  own  chil- 
dren. For  great  misfortunes  were  on  Egv'pt 
in  my  time,  and  on  this  city  of  Sais."  The 
following  is  an  inscription  on  a  tomb  of  a 
nomad  prince  at  Beni-Hassan:  "What  I 
have  done  I  will  say.  My  goodness  and  my 
kindness  were  ample.  I  never  oppressed 
the  fatherless  nor  the  widow.  I  did  not  treat 
cruelly  the  fi.shermen,  the  shepherds  or  the 
poor  laborers.  There  was  nowhere  in  my 
time  hunger  or  want.  For  I  cultivated  all 
mj-  fields,  far  and  near,  in  order  that  their 
inhabitants  might  have  food.  I  never  pre- 
ferred the  great  and  powerful  to  the  humble 
and  poor,  but  did  equal  justice  to  all."  A 
king's  tomb  at  Thebes  describes  the  relig- 
ious creed  of  a  Pharaoh  thus:  "I  lived  in 
truth,  and  fed  my  soul  with  justice.  What 
I  did  to  men  was  done  in  peace,  and  how  I 
loved  God,  God  and  my  heart  well  know. 
I  have  given  bread  to  the  hungry,  water  to 
the  thirsty,  clothes  to  the  naked,  and  a 
shelter  to  the  stranger.  I  honored  the  gods 
with  sacrifices,  and  the  dead  with  offeriugs. ' ' 


lOO 


AATIENT   JUS  TOR  Y.  —  Ed  'PT. 


A  rock  at  Lycopolis  pleads  for  an  ancient 
ruler  in  these  words:  "I  never  took  the 
child  from  its  mother's  bosom,  nor  the  poor 
man  from  the  side  of  his  wife."  Hundreds 
of  stones  in  Egypt  declare  the  best  gifts 
which  the  gods  bestow  on  their  favorites  to  be 
' '  the  respecft  of  men,  and  the  love  of  women. ' ' 
On  a  monumental  stele  discovered  at  Kar- 
nak  by  M.  Mariette,  and  translated  by  De 
Rouge,  is  an  inscription  recording  the  tri- 
umphs of  Thothmes  III.  in  strains  sounding 
like  the  song  of  Miriam  or  the  Hymn  of 
Deborah,  the  king  recognizing  his  power 
and  triumph  as  the  work  of  the  great  god 
Amun.  A  like  strain  of  religious  poetry  is 
found  in  the  Papyrus  of  Sallier,  now  in  the 
British  Museum.  This  is  an  epic  poem  by 
the  Egyptian  poet  Pentaour,  celebrating  the 
campaigns  of  Rameses  the  Great,  and  was 
can-ed  in  full  on  the  walls  of  Karnak.  It 
especially  describes  an  incident  in  a  war  with 
the  Kheta,  or  Hittites,  of  Syria,  who  had 
revolted  against  Rameses.     Rameses  being 


.separated  from  his  main  force  by  a  strategem, 
was  in  extreme  peril;  and  Pentaour  describes 
him  as  calling  upon  Amun,  God  of  Thebes, 
for  aid,  recounting  the  sacrifices  he  had 
offered  to  the  god,  and  imploring  the  god 
not  to  leave  him  to  the  mercy  of  the  cruel 
Syrian  tribes.  Rameses  is  represented  as 
pleading  thus;  "Have  I  not  eredted  to  thee 
great  temples  ?  Have  I  not  sacrificed  to 
thee  thirty  thousand  oxen  ?  I  have  brought 
from  Elephantine  obelisks  to  set  up  to  thy 
name.  I  invoke  thee,  O  my  father,  Amun. 
I  am  in  the  midst  of  a  throng  of  unknown 
tribes,  and  alone.  But  Amun  is  better  to 
me  than  thousands  of  archers  and  millions 
of  horsemen.  Amun  will  prevail  over  the 
enem}-."  After  defeating  his  enemies,  Ram- 
e.ses,  in  his  song  of  triumph,  says;  "Amun- 
Ra  has  been  at  my  right  and  my  left  in  the 
battles;  his  mind  has  inspired  my  own,  and 
has  prepared  the  downfall  of  mj^  enemies. 
Amun-Ra,  my  father,  has  brought  the  whole 
world  to  my  feet. ' ' 


SECTION    VI.— THE    ANCIENT    ETHIOPIANS. 


OUTH  of  Egypt — in  the  region 
now  called  Nubia  and  Abys- 
sinia— lived  the  ancient  Ethi- 
opians, some  tribes  of  whom 
were  as  highly  civilized  as  the 
ancient  Egyptians,  but  we  know  very  little 
of  their  history,  and  their  origin  is  involved 
in  the  impenetrable  obscurity  of  a  remote 
antiquity.  The  ruins  of  splendid  monu- 
ments, obelisks,  sphinxes,  colossal  statues, 
rock -cut  temples,  etc.,  along  that  portion  of 
the  Nile  valley,  fully  attest  the  progress  of 
this  ancient  Hamitic  people  in  the  art  of 
architecflure. 

Besides  the  civilized  Ethiopians,  this  re- 
gion was  occupied  in  ancient  times,  as  now, 
by  various  Arab  tribes  in  different  stages  of 
advancement  from  the  complete  savage  to 
the  hunting  and  fishing  tribes,  and  from 
these  to  the  nomadic  herdsmen  and  shep- 
herds. The  civilized  Ethiopians  dwelt  in 
cities,    possessed    a    civil   government   and 


laws,  were  acquainted  with  the  use  of  hiero- 
glyphics, and  the  fame  of  their  progress  in 
knowledge  and  the  .social  arts  had  in  the 
earliest  ages  spread  over  a  con.siderable  por- 
tion of  the  earth. 

The  soil  of  the  portion  of  the  Nile  \-alley 
occupied  bj^  the  ancient  Ethiopians  was  in 
their  day  as  fertile  as  the  richest  part  of 
Eg^'pt,  and  where  protecfted  it  yet  continues 
to  be  so,  but  the  hills  on  both  sides  are 
bordered  by  sandy  deserts,  against  which 
they  afford  but  a  scanty  protecflion.  The 
navigation  of  the  Nile  is  impeded  by  the 
windings  of  the  river,  and  by  the  obstru(5tion 
of  catara(fts  and  rapids,  so  that  intercourse 
is  more  generally  maintained  by  caravans 
than  by  boats.  In  the  southern  part  of  the 
valley  the  river  incloses  a  number  of  fertile 
islands.  The  productions  of  the  Nile  valley 
in  Nubia  are  e,s.sentially  the  same  as  those 
of  Egypt.  All  along  this  portion  of  the 
valley  is  a  succession  of  stupendous  monu- 


THF.    ETHIOPIANS. 


lOI 


ments,  rivaling  in  beauty  those  of  Thebes, 
and  surpassing  them  in  grandeur. 

The  island  of  Meroe — so  called  because  it 
was  almost  surrounded  with  rivers — pos- 
sessed large  numbers  of  camels,  which  were 
used  in  its  inunense  caravan  trade;  and  the 
ivory,  ebony  and  spices  which  the  Ethi- 
opians sent  down  the  river  into  Eg>pt  were 
obtained  by  traffic  with  the  inhabitants  of 
Central  Africa.  Meroe  had  better  harbors 
for  commerce  with  India  than  had  Egypt,  as 
the  Ethiopian  ports  on  the  Red  Sea  were 
superior  to  the  Egyptian,  and  the  caravan- 
routes  to  them  were  shorter  and  the  perilous 
portion  of  the  navigation  of  that  sea  was 
entirely  avoided.  In  the  wild  tradts  of 
country  in  the  vicinity  of  Meroe  are  ani- 
mals which  were  hiuited  by  the  ancient 
savage  tribes,  as  they  are  by  the  modem, 
such  as  the  giraffe,  or  camelopard.  The 
elephant  is  found  in  Abyssinia,  not  far  south 
of  the  neighborhood  of  Meroe. 

About  one  thousand  years  before  Christ, 
Meroe  was  the  seat  of  a  flourishing  Ethi- 
opian kingdom,  which  for  a  time  held 
Upper  Eg3'pt  under  sway,  bat  its  early  his- 
tory is  shrouded  in  the  obscurity  of  a  dim 
past.  The  monuments  of  Meroe  are  believed 
to  have  been  modeled  from  the  wonderful 
architecftural  stru(5lures  of  Egj'pt;  but  cut  off 
from  the  rest  of  the  civilized  world  hy  Egypt, 
the  Ethiopians  can  only  be  traced  in  historj' 
when  their  country  is  invaded,  or  when  they 
themselves  invade  other  lands.  We  have 
seen  that  several  Egj'ptian  kings  conquered 
Ethiopia  and  ruled  the  countrj'  for  short  in- 
tervals. The  fabled  Assyrian  queen,  Semi- 
ramis,  is  said  to  have  invaded  Ethiopia  in 
the  eleventh  century  before  Christ.  This  is 
doubtful,  but  we  have  certain  knowledge 
that  the  Ethiopians  at  this  time  were  a  pow- 
erful nation,  and  that  they  aided  Shishak, 
King  of  Egypt,  in  his  war  against  Reho- 
boam.  King  of  Judah,  in  957  B.  C.  Sixteen 
years  later  Zerah,  King  of  Ethiopia,  is  said 
to  have  invaded  Judah  with  an  immense 
army,  but  was  totally  defeated.  According 
to  the  Scripture  narrative,  the  Ethiopians 
had  made  considerable  progress  in  the  art 
of  war,  controlled  the  Red  Sea  navigation, 
1— 7.-U.  K. 


and  held  sway  over  a  large  portion  of  Ara- 
bia. The  expen.se  of  so  vast  and  distant  an 
expedition  bears  e\'idcnce  to  the  facfl  that 
the  Ethiopian  kingdom  must  then  have  been 
in  a  flourishing  condition. 

The  gradual  increa.se  of  the  Ethiopian 
power  finally  enabled  the  King  Sabaco,  or 
Shebak,  to  conquer  Eg>'pt,  over  which  he 
and  his  two  successors,  Sevechus  and  Tara- 
kus,  reigned  successively.  Sevechus,  called 
So  in  vScripture,  was  so  powerful  a  monarch 
that  Hoshea,  King  of  Israel,  rose  in  revolt 
against  the  Assyrians,  relying  upon  the  aid 
of  So;  but,  not  being  supported  by  his  Ethi- 
opian ally,  Hoshea  and  his  subjecfts  were 
carried  into  the  Assyrian  Captivity.  Tara- 
kus,  the  Tirhakah  of  Scripture,  was  a  more 
warlike  sovereign,  for  he  led  an  army 
against  Sennacherib,  King  of  Assyria,  who 
was  then  besieging  Jerusalem;  and  the 
Eg^'ptian  traditions,  preser\'ed  in  the  time 
of  Herodotus,  g^ve  the  account  of  the  de- 
strucftion  of  Sennacherib's  army  of  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty-five  thousand  men  in  a 
night  panic,  as  mentioned  in  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures. 

In  the  reign  of  Psammetichus  in  Egi^pt, 
in  the  seventh  century  before  Christ,  two 
hundred  and  forty  thousand  Egyptians  of 
the  warrior-caste,  offended  at  their  king's 
favor  to  Greek  merchants  whom  he  had  in- 
vited to  settle  in  Egypt,  migrated  to  Ethi- 
opia, and  were  settled  in  the  extreme  south- 
ern part  of  that  country,  where  they  ad- 
ded immensely  to  the  prosperity  of  the  state. 
The.se  useful  colonists  instrudled  the  Ethi- 
opians in  the  improvements  then  recently 
made  in  the  art  of  war,  and  thus  prepared 
them  for  resisting  the  formidable  invasion 
by  the  Persians. 

No  sooner  had  the  Persian  king,  Cam- 
byses,  conquered  Egypt,  in  525  B.  C,  than 
he  invaded  Ethiopia  without  preparing  any 
store  of  provisions,  ignorant  of  the  deserts 
through  which  he  had  to  pass,  so  that 
when  the  invasion  took  place  the  Persian 
army  was  destroyed  bj^  famine. 

The  religion  of  the  ancient  Ethiopians 
was  in  early  times  similar  to  that  of  Egypt. 
Aramon   was  the   chief  of  the   Ethiopian 


I02 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— EGYPT. 


gods,  and  several  temples  were  ere(5led  to 
his  worship.  The  political  power  was  vested 
in  a  priesthood,  who  comprised  a  sacred 
caste.  They  chose  the  king  from  one  of 
their  own  number,  and  could  take  his  life 
at  pleasure  in  the  name  of  their  gods.  The 
Ethiopian  priests  possessed  such  influence 
over  the  superstitious  African  tribes  that  a 
solitary  priest  at  the  head  of  a  caravan 
was  able  to  secure  a  safe  passage  of  untold 
wealth  through  the  countries  occupied  by 
the  most  ferocious  savages.  The  temples, 
also,  were  a  safe  place  for  the  deposit  of 
merchandise;  and  here,  under  the  shadow 
of  an  inviolable  sanifluary,  people  of  hostile 
nations  met  to  transacfl  their  business  in 
absolute  peace  and  security.  At  any  place 
where  it  was  considered  necessary  to  have 
a  commercial  emporium  a  temple  was  built 
for  its  protedlion. 

Whenever  the  Ethiopian  priests  became 
tired  of  their  king  they  sent  a  courier  with 
orders  for  him  to  die.  Ergamenes,  who 
reigned  early  in  the  third  century  before 
Christ  and  had  been  instrudted  in  the  Greek 
philosophy,  resisted  this  foolish  custom, 
stormed  the  fortresses  of  the  priests,  massa- 
cred many  of  them,  and  founded  a  new  re- 
ligion. 

The  sovereigns  of  Ethiopia  were  frequently 
queens.  An  Ethiopian  queen  named  Can- 
dace  made  war  on  Augustus  Caesar  about 
twenty  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  and, 
although  the  superior  discipline  of  the 
Romans  brought  them  an  easy  triumph. 
Queen  Candace  obtained  an  honorable  peace. 
During  the  reign  of  another  Queen  Candace 
the  Jewish  religion  prevailed  in  Meroe,  as  a 
result  of  the  change  made  by  Ergamenes ;  and 
the  queen's  confidential  adviser  went  to  wor- 
ship at  Jerusalem,  and  when  he  returned, 
A.  D.  53,  he  was  converted  to  Christianity  by 
St.  Philip,  and  thus  became  the  means  of 
introducing  that  religion  into  Ethiopia. 
Ever  since  that  time  the  Christian  religion 
has  prevailed  among  the  Ethiopians  and  their 
descendants,  the  modem  Abyssinians. 

The  pyramids  of  Meroe,  though  not  as 
large  as  those  of  Middle  Egypt,  exceed  them 
in  architedlural  beauty,  and  the  Ethiopian 


sepulchers  exhibit  the  greatest  purity  of 
taste.  The  use  of  the  arch  by  the  Ethiopi- 
ans fully  attests  their  progress  in  the  art  of 
building.  Mr.  Hoskins  has  asserted  that 
the  Ethiopian  pyramids  are  more  ancient 
than  the  Egyptian,  but  this  is  disputed  by 
the  best  authorities.  The  Ethiopian  vases 
depicfted  on  the  monuments,  though  not 
richly  ornamented,  exhibit  a  taste  and  ele- 
gance of  form  that  has  never  been  surpassed. 
In  sculpture  and  coloring,  the  edifices  of 
Meroe,  though  less  profusely  adorned,  rival 
the  best  specimens  of  Egyptian  art. 

Another  famous  Ethiopian  kingdom  was 
that  of  Axume,  an  ofi"shoot  of  Meroe.  •  Its 
capital,  Axum,  is  still  in  existence,  and  con- 
tains remarkable  antiquities,  among  which 
is  an  obelisk  eighty  feet  high,  in  the  great 
square,  beside  forty  others  of  smaller  size. 
Some  of  the  ruins  of  Axum  are  believed  by 
the  inhabitants  to  be  as  old  as  the  time  of 
Abraham.  A  stone  slab,  eight  feet  by  three 
and  a  half,  found  here,  has  an  antique  Greek 
inscription,  which,  translated,  begins  as  fol- 
lows: 

' '  We  Aeizamus,  king  of  the  Axomites,  and 
of  the  Homerites,  and  of  Raeidan,  and  of  the 
Ethiopians,  and  of  the  Sabeans,  and  of  Zeyla, 
and  of  Tiamo,  and  the  Boja,  and  of  the 
Taguie,  King  of  Kings,  Son  of  God,  etc." 

Aeizamus  was  King  of  Ethiopia  in  the 
time  of  the  Roman  Emperor  Constantine  the 
Great,  who  wrote  him  a  letter.  Adulis,  the 
port  of  Axume,  was  celebrated  for  its  ivory 
trade. 

All  along  the  banks  of  the  Nile  in  Nubia 
are  strewn  pyramids  of  unknown  antiquity, 
ruins  of  temples  and  monuments  similar  to. 
those  of  Eg>pt.  Near  the  present  Merawe 
are  seven  or  eight  temples,  adorned  with 
sculpture  and  hieroglyphics.  One  of  these 
temples  is  four  hundred  and  fifty  by  one 
hundred  and  fifty-nine  feet  in  extent.  Near 
Shendy  are  forty  p>-ramids. 

The  most  remarkable  of  all  the  monu- 
ments of  Nubia  is  the  rock-temple  of  Ipsam- 
bul,  near  Derr.  This  temple  is  cut  from  a 
mountain  of  solid  rock,  adorned  inside  with 
colossal  statues  and  painted  sculptures, 
representing  castles,  battles,  triumphal  pro- 


THE   ETHIOPIANS. 


103 


cessions  and  religious  pageants.  On  the  out- 
side are  four  colossi,  larger  than  any  sculp- 
tured figures  in  Eg^'pt,  except  the  Sphinx. 
One  of  these  colossi  is  sixty-five  feet  high. 
This  temple  is  one  hundred  and  seventy  feet 
in  depth,  and  contains  fourteen  apartments, 
one  of  which  is  fifty -seven  feet  by  fifty-two, 
and  is  supported  by  images  with  folded  arms, 
thirty  feet  high.  The  rock  in  which  this 
temple  is  built  is  six  hundred  feet  high. 

The  great  rock-temple  of  Ipsambul  is  said 
to  resemble  the  famous  excavated  struc- 
tures on  the  island  of  Elephanta,  near  Bom- 
bay, on  the  west  coast  of  Hindoostan.  The 
general  plan  is  the  same  in  both — massive 
pillars,  stupendous  figures,  symbolic  devices 
and  mystic  ornaments.  It  is  also  asserted 
that  a  frequent  resemblance  is  discovered  be- 
tween the  religious  vestiges  of  Eg^'pt  and 
Ethiopia  and  those  of  India. 

Among  the  numerous  other  remarkable 
antiquities  of  this  region  we  must  mention 
those  of  Barkal,  about  a  mile  from  the  Nile, 
and  near  the  village  of  Merawe,  the  ancient 
Napata,  the  capital  of  Queen  Candace. 
Here  is  a  rock  rising  four  hundred  feet  per- 
pendicularly toward  the  river,  at  the  foot  of 


which  are  huge  rock-hewn  temples,  the 
walls  of  which  are  covered  with  hieroglyph- 
ics in  high  relief,  representing  figures  of 
kings  and  gods,  among  which  we  are  able 
to  distinguish  Isis,  Amnion,  Apis,  Horus 
and  Mendes.  There  are  other  gigantic  ruins 
in  this  region. 

Meroe,  on  account  of  its  favorable  situa- 
tion for  commercial  intercourse  with  India 
and  Central  Africa,  by  its  location  on  the 
intersedlion  of  the  leading  caravan-routes  of 
ancient  commerce,  was  the  emporium  of 
trade  between  the  north  and  the  south,  be- 
tween the  east  and  the  west,  while  the  fer- 
tility of  its  soil  enabled  the  Ethiopians  to 
purchase  luxuries  with  native  productions. 
Fabrics  were  woven  in  Meroe,  and  the 
manufactures  of  metal  were  here  as  flour- 
ishing as  in  Egj'pt. 

The  great  changes  in  the  lines  of  trade, 
the  ravages  of  successive  conquerors  and 
revolutions,  the  fanaticism  of  the  Saracens, 
and  the  ruin  of  the  fertile  soil  by  the  moving 
sands  of  the  desert,  together  with  the  pres- 
sure of  nomadic  hordes,  all  contributed  to 
the  extindlion  of  this  powerful  ancient  em- 
pire. 


Ruck.  te.mi'I.jc  uf  ii'-samulx. 


JI  A    P     OF     THE 

EARLIEST  HISTORIC   REGIOISS 

!A.  N  D      THE 

BIRTHPLACE     OF     CIYILIZATIQN 

B.C.  3000 -1000. 
By  I  S.Clare 

SCALE  OF  MILES 


0    25    50       100  200  300  100 

frhc  lighi  part  represents, the  cradle  of  civilisation  aad  history. 


LiHisituJe  Easl    HJ    frou^  Grteuwicii 


4o 


50 


^™ 


i:    I 


CHAPTER    II. 


THE  CHALDEAN   EMPIRE. 


SECTION    I.— GEOGRAPHY    OF   CHALD^A. 


(ISIA,  as  we  have  noticed,  was  the 
cradle  of  the  human  race.  The 
cradle  of  Asiatic  histor>-  and 
civilization  was  the  valley  of 
the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  riv- 
ers. This  region  was  earh'  occupied  by 
Semitic  and  Hamitic  tribes.  The  civiliza- 
tion which  grew  up  in  the  Tigris- Euphrates 
valle}'  was  almost  as  ancient  as  that  which 
arose  in  the  Nile  valley.  There  is  an  adtual 
date  in  Chaldaean  historj'  as  far  back  as 
2234  B.  C. ;  while  authentic  Egj-ptian  his- 
tory— the  period  of  the  Pyramid-builders, 
the  Fourth  Dynasty — antedates  this  date 
by  only  two  centuries,  B.  C.  2450. 

The  Hebrew  Scriptures  assign  the  be- 
ginning of  the  history  of  the  human  race 
in  the  Tigris-Euphrates  valley.  Speaking 
of  the  immediate  posterity  of  Noah  and 
his  sons,  Shem,  Ham  and  Japheth,  after  the 
Deluge,  the  Book  of  Genesis  says:  "And  it 
came  to  pass,  as  they  journeyed  from  the 
east,  that  they  found  a  plain  in  the  Land  of 
Shinar,  and  dwelt  there."  Shinar  was  the 
southern  portion  of  the  Tigris-Euphrates 
valley.  In  this  region  the  Scriptures  place 
the  building  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  and 
the  ' '  Confusion  of  Tongues ' '  and  disper- 
sion of  the  human  race.  The  record  of 
this  event  is  preser\-ed  in  the  Babylonian 
tradition,  as  well  as  in  the  Mosaic  narra- 
tive; and  an  account  of  this  has  been  re- 
cently discovered  among  the  cuneiform  in- 
scriptions on  the  Babylonian  tablets  now  in 
the  British  Museum. 

The  Tigris  and  Euphrates  rivers  rise  in  the 
highlands  of  Armenia  and  unite  near  the  head 
of  the  Persiou  Gulf,  into  which  their  waters 


empty  after  the  Euphrates  has  flowed  about 
1780  miles  and  the  Tigris  about  1146  miles. 
Both  these  rivers,  like  the  Nile,  overflow 
their  banks  in  the  lower  part  of  their  courses; 
and  though  these  inundations  do  not  deposit 
a  fresh  soil,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Nile,  they 
are  the  cause  of  the  fertility  of  the  plain  of 
Mesopotamia,  and  in  ancient  times  they 
were  condudled  throughout  its  entire  extent 
by  a  system  of  canals,  by  which  these  over- 
flows were  utilized  and  the  countrj-  thus 
irrigated.  The  Tigris-Euphrates  vallej^ 
comprises  a  fertile  region  in  the  midst  of 
the  great  belt  of  desert  extending  from  the 
western  shores  of  Africa  almost  to  the  north- 
eastern coast  of  Asia. 

This  fertile  vallej-  anciently  embraced  a 
number  of  territorial  and  political  divisions, 
whose  boundaries  were  often  very  indefinite. 
The  region  between  the  two  ri\'ers  was 
called  Mesopotamia  by  the  Greeks  (from 
mesos,  midst,  and  potamoi.  rivers).  This 
was  merely  a  geographical  or  territorial  dis- 
tricft,  and  not  a  political  division.  Chaldaea, 
or  Babylonia,  was  a  political  as  well  as  a  ter- 
ritorial division,  situated  between  the  lower 
course  of  the  Tigris  on  the  east  and  Arabia 
on  the  west,  and  corresponding  to  the  geo- 
graphical region  which  the  Hebrews  desig- 
nated as  the  Land  of  Shinar.  As  the  Per- 
sian Gulf  in  ancient  times  extended  about 
1 20  or  1 30  miles  farther  north  than  at  present, 
ancient  Chaldsea  was  quite  a  small  section 
of  country  compared  with  that  region  in 
our  day.  The  distri(5t  east  of  the  lower 
course  of  these  rivers,  immediately  east  of 
Babylonia,  was  a  territorial  and  political 
divi.sion  called  Susiana,  or  Elam,  the  chief 


(105) 


io6 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— CHALD^A. 


city  of  which  was  vSusa.  Assyria  proper,  as 
a  territorial  division,  lay  to  the  east  of  the 
Euphrates,  west  of  the  Zagros  mountains, 
north  of  Susiana  and  Chaldgea,  and  south  of 
Armenia;  while  Assyria  as  a  political  power, 
or  the  Assyrian  Empire,  varied  in  territorial 
extent  at  different  times,  and  often  comprised 
the  entire  region  from  the  Mediterranean  to 
the  plateau  of  Iran. 

Three  great  empires  successively  flour- 
ished in  the  Tigris-Euphrates  valley — the 
Chaldaean,  or  Early  Babylonian  Empire, 
from  2400  B.  C.  to  1300  B.  C;  the  Assyrian 
Empire,  from  1300  B.  C.  to  625  B.  C;  and 
the  Eater  Babylonian  Empire,  from  625 
B.  C.  to  538  B.  C. 

The  Chaldaean,  or  Early  Babylonian  Em- 
pire, was  the  first  great  monarchy  of  South- 
western Asia.  As  we  have  seen,  its  seat 
was  the  great  alluvial  plain  lying  to  the 
north-west  of  the  Persian  Gulf.  The  popu- 
lation of  this  region  increased  very  rapidly 
in  the  most  ancient  times,  because  of  the 
extreme  natural  fertility  of  the  soil,  which 
produced  everything  requisite  for  man's  sup- 
port. Groves  of  date-palm  lined  the  banks 
of  the  rivers,  and  such  cereal  grains  as  wheat, 
barley,  millet,  sesame  and  vetches  grew  in 
luxuriant  abundance,  as  did  also  various 
other  grains.  Says  a  certain  writer:  "Ac- 
cording to  a  native  tradition,  wheat  was  in- 
digenous in  Chaldaea.  Its  tendencies  to 
grow  leaves  was  so  great  that  the  Babylon- 
ians used  to  mow  it  twice,  and  then  pasture 
their  cattle  on  it  for  a  while,  to  keep  down 
the  blade  and  induce  the  plant  to  turn  to 
ear."  Speaking  of  this  country,  Herodotus 
says:  "  Of  all  the  countries  that  we  know  of, 
there  is  none  so  fruitful  in  grain.  It  makes 
no  pretension  indeed  of  growing  the  fig,  the 
olive,  the  vine  or  any  other  tree  of  the  kind; 
but  in  grain  it  is  so  fruitful  as  to  yield  two 
hundred  fold.  The  blade  of  the  wheat  plant 
and  barley  plant  is  often  three  or  four 
fingers  in  breadth.  As  for  the  millet  and 
the  .sesame,  I  shall  not  say  to  what  height 
they  grow,  though  within  my  own  knowl- 
edge; for  I  am  not  ignorant  that  what  I 
have  already  written  concerning  the  fruit- 
fulness  of  Babylonia  must  seem  incredible 


to  those  who  have  never  \-isited  the  coun- 
try." 

Saj'S  another  writer:  "Babylonia,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Euphrates,  rivaled  the 
fertility  of  the  valley  of  the  Nile;  the  .soil 
was  so  peculiarly  suited  for  com  that  the 
husbandman's  returns  were  sometimes  three 
hundred  fold,  and  rarely  less  than  two  hun- 
dred fold.  The  rich  oily  grains  of  the  pan- 
cium  and  sesamum  were  produced  in  luxu- 
riant abundance;  the  fig-tree,  the  olive  and 
the  vine  were  wholly  wanting;  but  there 
were  large  groves  of  palm-trees  on  the 
banks  of  the  river.  From  the  palms  they 
obtained  not  only  fruit,  but  wine,  sugar  and 
molasses,  as  the  Arabs  do  at  the  present 
time.  Dwarf  cypress-trees  were  scattered 
over  the  plains;  but  these  were  a  poor  sub- 
stitute for  other  species  of  wood.  To  this 
deficiency  of  timber  must  be  attributed  the 
negle(5t  of  the  river  navigation,  and  the 
abandonment  of  the  commerce  of  the  Indian 
seas,  by  the  Babylonians." 

Chaldsea  produced  no  stone  or  minerals  of 
any  kind.  The  stone  used  in  building  was 
brought  there  from  other  lands.  But  the 
country  yielded  an  abundant  supply  of  clay, 
from  which  were  manufactured  excellent 
bricks  for  building  purposes,  while  the  wells 
of  bitumen  afforded  an  inexhaustible  amount 
of  admirable  cement.  These  materials  sup- 
plied the  place  of  wood,  stone  and  mortar. 
Considering  its  luxuriant  yield  of  cheap  and 
abundant  food  and  its  never-failing  supply 
of  building  material,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
Chaldsea  in  primeval  times  became  densely 
populated  and  abounded  in  great  cities. 
Assyria  was  better  supplied  with  minerals 
than  Chaldaea;  good  qualities  of  stone,  iron, 
copper,  lead,  silver,  antimony  and  other 
metals  existed  in  abundance;  while  bitumen 
naphtha,  petroleum,  sulphur,  alum  and  salt, 
were  also  yielded. 

As  regards  climate,  the  winters  of  Chal- 
dffia  are  mild,  frosts  being  light  and  snow 
unknown;  while  the  summers  are  hot  and 
dry;  and  heavy  rains  fall  in  November  and 
December.  The  wild  animals  indigenous 
in  Chalda3a  were  the  lion,  the  leopard,  the 
hyena,  the  lynx,  the  wild  cat,  the  wolf,  the 


SOURCES    OF   CHALDyRAN   HISTORY. 


107 


jackal,  the  wild  boar,  the  bnffalo,  the  stag, 
the  gazelle,  the  jerboa,  the  fox,  the  hare,  the 
badger  and  the  porcupine.  The  domestic 
animals  of  the  country  were  the  camel,  the 
horse,  the  buffalo,  the  cow,  the  ox,  the  goat, 
the  sheep  and  the  dog. 

The  Book  of  Genesis,  in  speaking  of  Nim- 
rod,  "the  mighty  hunter  before  the  L,ord," 
says:  "  And  the  beginning  of  his  kingdom 
was  Babel,  and  Erech,  and  Accad,  and 
Calneh,  in  the  Land  of  Shinar."  The 
southern  tetrarchy  of  four  cities  consisted 
of  Ur  or  Hur,  Hunik,  Nipur,  and  Larsa  or 
Larancha,  which  are  believed  to  be  identical 
with  the  Scriptural  "Urof  the  Chaldees," 
Erech,  Calneh,  and  Ellasar.  The  northern 
tetrarch}-  consisted  of  the  cities  of  Babel  or 
Babylon,  Borsippa,  Cutha  and  Sippara. 

Ur,  or  Hur,  in  the  southern  part  of  Chal- 
daea,  betn'een  the  Euphrates  and  the  Ara- 
bian border,  was  the  early  capital  and  me- 
tropolis of  Chaldasa,  and  is  celebrated  as 
the  birth-place  of  Abraham.  Its  stately 
ruins,  now  called  Mugheir  bj-  the  Arabs, 
and  chief  among  which  are  the  remains  of 
a  great  temple,  consist  principalh-  of  a  series 
of  low  mounds  of  an  oval  shape  with  the 
largest  diameter  running  from  north  to 
south.  Thirty  miles  north-west  of  Ur,  on 
the  east  bank  of  the  Euphrates,  are  the 
ruins  of  Larsa  or  Larrak,  the  Biblical  Ella- 
sar, the  Laranchse  of  Berosus,  and  the  Lar- 
issa  of  Apollodorus;  now  called  Senkereh  or 
Sinkara.     On   the  same  side  of   the  river. 


fifteen  miles  north-west  of  Larsa,  are  the 
ruins  of  Huruk,  the  Scriptural  Erech  and 
the  Greek  Orchoe;  called  by  the  present  na- 
tives Urka  or  Warka,  and  celebrated  for  the 
ruins  of  its  ma.ssive  temple.  Sixty-five 
miles  north-west  of  Warka,  thirty  miles 
east  of  the  Euphrates,  are  the  ruins  of  Ni- 
pur, called  Calneh  by  Moses,  and  Niffer  by 
the  present  inhabitants.  About  sixty  miles 
from  Niffer,  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Euphra- 
tes, are  the  remains  of  the  ancient  Borsippa, 
chiefl}^  its  temple,  whose  modem  name 
is  Birs-i-Nimrud.  Fifteen  miles  north-west, 
on  both  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  are  the 
ruins  of  ' '  Babylon  the  Great, ' '  which  cover 
a  space  three  miles  long  by  between  one 
and  two  miles  wide,  and  which  consist  of 
three  mounds  now  called  Babil,  Kasr  and 
Amram  bj-  the  Arabs.  The  ancient  Sippara, 
the  Scriptural  Sephan'aim,  was  twenty 
miles  north-west  of  Babylon,  on  the  east 
bank  of  the  Euphrates,  and  is  now  called 
Sura.  Dur-Kurri-galzu,  now  called  Akker- 
kuf  on  the  Saklawiyeh  canal,  was  six  miles 
from  the  site  of  the  present  Bagdad.  About 
twenty  miles  north-east  of  Babylon  was 
Cutha,  now  Ibrahim.  Ilii,  or  Ahava,  was 
the  modem  Hit,  about  one  hundred  and 
twenty  miles  north-west  of  Babylon,  on  the 
Euphrates.  Chilmad  was  the  present  Kal- 
wadha,  near  Bagdad.  Rubesi  was  probably 
Zerghul.  There  were  a  large  number  of 
smaller  cities  in  ever}'  part  of  Chaldaea,  of 
which  nothing  is  known. 


SECTION    II.— SOURCES    OF    CHALD^^AN    HISTORY. 


EGARDING  the  great  anti- 
quity of  Chaldaea  we  have  the 
authority  of  Berosus,  the  na- 
tive Babylonian  historian,  who 
was  a  priest  of  Bel  at  Babylon, 
and  flouri-shed  during  the  first  half  of  the 
third  century  B,  C.  Soon  after  Alexander 
the  Great  took  Babylon,  Berosus  wrote  a 
History  of  Chaldaea  in  Greek,  in  three  books, 
and  dedicated  the  work  to  Antiochus,  King 


of  Sj'ria.  Unfortunately  this  work  has  been 
lost,  excepting  a  few  fragments  which  were 
copied  by  Apollodorus  and  Polyhistor,  two 
Greek  writers  of  the  first  centur\-  before 
Christ,  and  these  fragments  were  afterwards 
quoted  bj-  Eusebius  and  Syncellus,  and 
from  them  we  learn  the  Babylonian  histor- 
ian's account  of  his  country's  annals.  Other 
ancient  sources  of  Chaldsean,  Assyrian  and 
Babj'lonian  history  are  the  Old  Testatment 


io8 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.—  CHALD^A. 


and  the  writings  of  the   Greek   historians, 
Herodotus,  Ctesias  and  Diodorus  Siculus. 

As  in  the  case  of  Egypt,  our  knowledge 
of  the  history  of  the  three  great  successive 
empires  in  the  Tigris-Euphrates  valley  has 
been  vastly  enlarged  through  the  diligent 
research  of  modem  historians,  antiquarians 
and  Orientalists.  By  the  diligence  of  the 
great  explorers,  beginning  with  Layard 
nearlj'  half  a  century  ago,  Nineveh,  Babjdon 
and  the  buried  cities  of  the  plain  have  been 
excavated;  their  temples  and  palaces  have 
been  exposed  to  view;  the  mysterious  in- 
scriptions in  the  cuneiform,  or  wedge-shaped 
and  arrow-headed  charadlers,  which  were 
discovered  on  the  slabs  that  lined  the  in- 
sides  of  the  palaces  and  temples,  have,  by  a 
grand  triumph  of  modem  scholarship,  been 
deciphered,  so  that  a  new  flood  of  light  has 
been  shed  upon  the  darkness  of  these  famous 
ancient  monarchies.  Specimens  of  the  cu- 
neiform inscriptions  have  been  published  in 
the  British  Museum  Series,   edited  by  Sir 


Henr>'  Rawlinson  and  Mr.  E.  Norris.  Many 
of  these  inscriptions  have  been  deciphered 
by  M.  Oppert,  the  French  Orientalist.  The 
evidence  of  both  classical  writers  and  the 
monumental  inscriptions  shows  that  the 
Chaldaeans,  Assyrians  and  Eater  Babylon- 
ians paid  great  attention  to  chronology. 
The  Canon  of  Ptolemy,  which  contained  an 
exadl  Babylonian  computation  of  time  from 
747  B.  C.  to  331  B.  C,  is  generally  credited 
as  a  most  authentic  document.  The  Assyr- 
ian Canon,  discovered  by  Sir  Henry  Raw- 
linson, and  consisting  of  a  number  of  clay 
tablets,  contains  a  complete  .system  of  Assyr- 
ian chronology  from  911  B.  C.  to  660  B.  C, 
verified  by  the  record  of  a  solar  eclipse  which 
must  have  occurred  June  15,  763  B.  C;  and 
is  regarded  as  equally  reliable.  Among  the 
eminent  modem  writers  on  the.se  ancient 
Oriental  monarchies  are  the  English  histor- 
ians, George  Rawlinson  and  P.  Smith,  and 
the  renowned  German  historians  and  Ori- 
entalists, Niebuhr,  Bunsen  and  Duncker. 


SECTION    III.— POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


HE  Chaldaeans  were  a  Semitic 
and  Hamitic  race,  and  their 
origin  is  involved  in  the  ob- 
scurity of  an  unknown  anti- 
quity. The  Chaldaean  mon- 
archy probably  began  about  2400  B.  C,  as 
we  have  an  account  of  astronomical  obser- 
vations dating  back  to  2234  B.  C.  Berosus 
assigns  nine  dynasties  to  Chaldaea  and 
Babylonia  from  the  Deluge  to  the  Persian 
conquest  of  Babylonia  in  538  B.  C.  The 
first  of  the.se  dj-nasties  is  largely  traditional, 
and  ended,  according  to  Rawlinson,  in  the 
3^ear  2286  B.  C,  and  according  to  Duncker 
in  the  year  2458  B.  C. 

The  Hebrew  Scriptures  mention  Nimrod, 
the  .son  of  Cush  and  the  grand.son  of  Ham, 
as  the  founder  of  this  most  ancient  Asiatic 
empire.  Says  the  Mosaic  narrative:  "And 
Cush  begat  Nimrod  ;  he  began  to  be  a 
mighty  one  in  the  earth ;  he  was  a  mighty 


hunter  before  the  Lord;  wherefore  it  is  said, 
Even  as  Nimrod,  the  mighty'  hunter  before 
the  Lord;  and  the  beginning  of  his  kingdom 
was  Babel,  and  Erech,  and  Accad,  and  Cal- 
neh,  in  the  land  of  Shinar. "  Nimrod's 
capital  was  the  celebrated  "  Ur  of  the  Chal- 
dees,  "  which  at  this  early  period  was  a 
greater  city  than  the  four  which  Nimrod  is 
said  to  have  founded.  By  means  of  his  per- 
sonal prowess  and  strength,  as  "a  mighty 
hunter  before  the  Lord, ' '  Nimrod  had  earned 
the  gratitude  of  his  countrymen  by  reducing 
the  number  of  wild  animals  which  roamed 
over  that  region  in  primitive  times.  Evi- 
dently one  of  the  greatest  charadlers  of  an- 
tiquity, Nimrod  was  deified  by  the  Chal- 
daeans after  his  death,  and  was  worshiped 
by  them  and  by  the  Assyrians  and  Later 
Babylonians  for  two  thousand  years,  under 
the  title  of  Dilu-Nipru,  or  Bel-Nimrod,  "the 
god  of  the  chase,"   or  "the  great  hunter." 


Pi  VJTICAL    ins  TOR  Y. 


109 


Rawliiison  thinks  that  the  title  assigned  by 
the  Arab  astronomers  to  the  constellation  of 
Orion — El  Jabbar,  "the  giant"— was  in 
memon.-  of  Xinirod.  The  ignorant  people 
who  occupy  that  region  at  the  present  day 
still  remember  Ninirod,  Solomon  and  Alex- 


NIMROD. 


ander  the  Great  as  the  three  great  heroes  of 
antiquity,  while  all  others  have  been  forgot- 
ten. Calah,  one  of  the  Assyrian  capitals, 
was  regarded  as  Nimrod's  sacred  city,  and 
the  town  which  now  occupies  its  site  bears 
his  name  slightly  corrupted — Niinrud.     Al- 


though the  tradition  concerning  Nimrod  is 
almost  universal,  his  name  has  not  yet  been 
found  among  o.\\y  of  the  monuments  or  cu- 
neiform inscriptions. 

We  have  no  account  of  the  immediate  suc- 
cessors of  Nimrod.  Some  time  after  his 
death  there  followed  a  migration  of  Semitic 
and  Haniitic  tribes  from  ChakUea  to  the 
northward  and  westward.  Thus  the  Assjt- 
ians,  a  Semitic  people,  migrated  to  the  mid- 
dle portion  of  the  Tigris  valley,  where  they 
laid  the  foundations  of  their  kingdom;  the 
Phoenicians,  a  Hamitic  race,  descended  from 
Canaan,  a  .son  of  Ham,  settled  on  the  west- 
ern shores  of  the  country  afterwards  called 
Canaan,  or  Palestine,  where  they  became 
the  most  famous  commercial  and  colonizing 
people  of  antiquity;  while  the  Semitic  tribe 
which  produced  Abraham,  the  shepherd  and 
native  of  "  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,"  and  from 
whom  are  descended  the  Hebrews  and  Arabs, 
passed  into  Northern  Mesopotamia,  whence 
Abraham  journeyed  westward  with  his  flocks 
and  herds  into  the  "promised  land"  of 
Canaan. 

One  of  the  successors  of  Nimrod  was 
Urukh,  or  Urkham.  He  is  the  first  Chal- 
dsean  king  of  whom  any  traces  have  been 
discovered  in  the  countr>'.  The  exadl  time 
of  his  reign  is  uncertain.  He  eredled  many 
stupendous  edifices,  which  appear  to  have 
been  designed  as  temples.  These  structures 
are  gigantic  in  dimensions,  but  rude  in  work- 
manship. The  bricks  of  which  the)-  are 
built  are  rough,  and  put  together  awkwardl}', 
moist  mud  or  bitumen  being  used  for  mortar. 
In  speaking  of  the  works  eredled  by  this 
monarch,  Professor  Rawlinson  says:  "In 
his  architedture,  though  there  is  much  that  is 
rude  and  simple,  there  is  also  a  good  deal 
which  indicates  knowledge  and  experience." 
Astronomy  was  cultivated  during  the  reign 
of  Urukh.  Ur  was  still  the  capital  of  the 
Chaldsean  monarchy,  Babylon  having  not 
yet  risen  into  importance.  At  Warka,  on 
the  site  of  the  ancient  city  of  Huriik — the 
Erech  of  the  Book  of  Genesis — is  the  famous 
mound  called  Bowariyeh  by  the  present  in- 
habitants. The  general  form  of  the  ruin  is 
pyramidal,  but  the  ravages  of  ages  have  de- 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— CHALD^A. 


stroj-ed  its  sj-mmetn-.  Recent  discoveries 
have  brought  to  light  the  fatt  that  this  mas- 
sive structure  was  a  tower  two  hundred  feet 
square  at  its  base  and  two  stories  high.  The 
lower  storv'  was  built  of  bricks  baked  in  the 
sun  and  cemented  together  with  bitumen, 
in  which  were  placed  laj-ers  of  reeds  ever>- 
four  or  five  feet.  In  the  upper  story,  which 
is  now  in  ruins,  the  middle  portion  was  like- 
wise of  .sun-baked  brick,  but  on  the  outside 
were  burnt  bricks.  As  it  now  stands,  this 
ancient  temple  is  about  one  hundred  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  plain,  and  not  much 
is  known  of  the  original  dimensions  of  the 
massive  edifice,  but  the  ruins  indicate  that 
it  must  have  been  of  immense  altitude  and 
grandeur.  All  the  bricks  of  the  buttresses 
are  stamped  with  cuneiform  inscriptions,  and 
the  layers  are  strongly'  cemented  with  bitu- 
men. The  solid  dimensions  of  the  whole 
strudlure  have  been  estimated  at  three  million 
cubic  feet,  and  the  number  of  bricks  used  in 
its  eredlion  have  been  computed  at  thirty 
millions.  The  name  of  its  royal  builder 
frequently  occurs  on  the  burnt  bricks  of  this 
ruined  temple.  In  some  places  his  name  is 
stamped  in  the  baked  clay,  and  in  other 
places  the  inscription  records  that  "  Urukh, 
King  of  Ur,  King  of  Sumir  and  Accad,  has 
built  a  temple  to  his  ladj-,  the  goddess 
Nana,"  or  that  "Urukh  has  built  the  temple 
and  fortress  of  Ur  in  honor  of  his  Lord,  the 
god  Sin,"  or  that  "The  mighty  Lord,  King 
of  Ur,  may  his  name  continue  !  " 

The  temple  of  Ur  was  also  built  by  Urukh, 
and  is  like  the  one  just  described.  Recent 
excavations  have  unearthed  the  ruins  of  this 
old  Chaldjean  structure  after  it  lay  buried 
for  centuries  beneath  the  mounds  of  rubbish. 
In  the  portion  of  the  strucflure  which  has 
escaped  the  ravages  of  time  ma}-  be  seen  the 
traces  of  the  temple  of  Hurki,  the  Moon- 
god.  The  four  corners  of  the  vast  edifice, 
and  not  its  four  sides,  face  the  four  cardinal 
points  of  the  compass,  and  the  ground-plan 
of  the  strucflure  is  in  the  form  of  a  parallelo- 
gram, with  its  longest  sides  facing  to  the 
north-east  and  south-west.  The  foundation 
of  this  temple  is  raised  twenty  feet  above 
the  level  of  the  plain.     The  longer  sides  of 


the  base  measure  one  hundred  and  ninet}'- 
eight  feet,  and  the  .shorter  sides  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-three  feet.  The  first  story 
above  the  basement  is  about  forty  feet  high, 
and  is  secured  outside  by  a  wall  ten  feet 
thick,  made  of  burnt  brick  cemented  to- 
gether with  bitumen.  The  .second  story, 
now  mostly  in  ruins,  had  the  same  form  and 
character  originally.  According  to  a  local 
tradition  this  immense  structure  had  a  third 
storj',  said  to  be  the  shrine  of  the  god  to 
whose  worship  the  temple  had  been  erecfled. 
Tiles  glazed  with  a  blue  enamel  and  copper 
nails  have  been  found  in  such  a  position  as 
to  indicate  that  they  were  used  in  the  con- 
strudlion  of  this  third  story. 

Similar  ruins  have  been  discovered  in 
other  parts  of  Chaldsea,  of  which  the  most 
important  are  those  of  Calneh  and  Larsa. 
Heaps  of  rubbish,  the  ruins  of  wrecked 
temples,  are  seen  in  ever>'  part  of  this 
famous  land  of  remote  antiquity.  In  Cal- 
neh the  fragments  of  temples  eredled  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Urukh  are  buried  beneath 
two  mounds.  The  first  of  these  temples 
was  dedicated  to  the  goddess  Beltis  and  the 
other  to  Bel-Nimrod.  In  Larsa  the  ruins 
indicate  that  San,  the  Sun-god,  was  adored 
as  the  tutelary  divinity  of  that  city.  In  the 
cuneiform  inscriptions  of  Ur,  his  capital, 
Urukh  is  sometimes  called  ' '  King  of  Ur, ' ' 
and  also  ' '  King  of  Accad. ' '  It  was  chiefly  at 
Ur  that  his  great  architecflural  works  were 
ere(5led.  The  ruins  of  this  once-famous 
cit} — his  great  capital — display  his  inscrip- 
tions in  greater  profusion  than  those  of  any 
other  Chaldaean  monarch. 

Urukh,  at  his  death,  was  succeeded  on  the 
Chaldaean  throne  by  his  son,  Ilgi,  or  Elgi, 
who  also  styled  himself  "King  of  Ur. " 
The  royal  seal  or  signet  of  the  Chaldaean 
and  Assyrian  monarchs  was  formed  in  the 
shape  of  a  small  cylinder,  with  figures  and 
characters  engraven  in  the  surface.  When 
rolled  upon  wax  or  any  other  plastic  mate- 
rial this  cylinder  left  the  king's  name  and 
emblems  in  jrelief  upon  the  substance  em- 
ployed in  sealing.  In  one  of  the  mounds 
near  Erech,  or  Orchoii,  the  signet-cylinder  of 
Ilgi  has  been  found,  and  is  now  in  the  Brit- 


POL  ITICA  L    HIS  TOR  Y. 


Ill 


ish  Museum.  The  legend  inscribed  upon  it 
has  been  deciphered  as  follows:  "  For  sav- 
ing the  life  of  Ilgi,  from  the  mighty  Lord, 
the  King  of  Ur,  son  of  I'rukh. "  Ilgi  fin- 
ished the  great  archite<flural  strudlures  com- 
menced by  his  father,  and  is  reputed  to 
have  repaired  two  of  the  great  temples  of 
Erech.  The  inscriptions  testifj-  to  the  fame 
of  both  Urukh  and  Ilgi  as  architedls  and 
warriors. 

After  Ilgi's  reign  there  is  a  blank  in  Chal- 
daean  historj-,  broken  \iy  the  conquest  of  the 
kingdom  by  a  Susiaiiian,  or  Elamite  dynastj-, 
the  second  in  the  lists  of  Berosus,  about  2286 
B.  C.  The  first  monarch  of  this  dynasty 
was  Kudur-Nakhunta,  who  governed 
Chaldaea  through  viceroys,  while  he  held 
his  court  at  Susa,  his  capital.  One  of  his  suc- 
cessors was  Kudur-Lagajier — the  Chedor- 
laomer  of  Scripture — who  likewise  reigned 
at  Susa,  and  divided  Chaldsea  into  several 
provinces,  which  he  governed  by  means  of 
viceroys.  Kudur-Lagamer,  or  Chedorlao- 
mer,  was  the  first  great  Oriental  conqueror. 
After  conquering  Assj-ria  he  invaded  Ca- 
naan, or  Palestine,  where  he  was  opposed  by 
the  Canaanitish  princes,  Bera,  King  of  So- 
dom ;  Birsha,  King  of  Gomorrah ;  Shinah, 
King  of  Admeh ;  Shemeber,  King  of  Ze- 
boiim ;  and  the  King  of  Bela  or  Zoar.  A 
great  battle  in  the  valley  of  Siddim,  near 
the  Dead  Sea — the  first  great  battle  recorded 
in  history — resulted  in  a  victorj'  for  Chedor- 
laomer,  who  for  twelve  years  held  the  Ca- 
naanitish kings  in  vassalage.  At  the  end  of 
this  period  these  kings  attempted  to  free 
themselves  from  this  j'oke,  whereupon  Che- 
dorlaomer  again  led  an  expedition  into  Pal- 
estine, and  defeated  the  Canaanites  in  a  sec- 
ond battle  in  the  vallej^  of  Siddim,  on  which 
occasion  Lot,  Abraham's  nephew,  was  taken 
prisoner.  After  plundering  the  cities  of 
Palestine,  the  vicftorious  Chaldees  set  out 
upon  their  march  home ;  but  encumbered 
by  their  captives  and  plunder,  they  were 
routed  near  Damascus  by  Abraham,  who 
with  a  small  band  had  made  a  night  attack 
upon  the  retreating  Chaldjean  host,  and 
driven  them  in  a  panic  across  the  Syrian 
desert,  recovering  the  booty  thej'  had  taken. 


This  repulse  .secured  Canaan  against  any 
further  attack  from  the  King  of  Chaldsea 

Only  three  of  the  succeeding  Chaldsean 
kings  of  this  Susiaiiian,  or  Elamite  dynasty 
are  known.  The  first  of  the.se,  vSinti-shil- 
khak,  is  known  only  by  name.  The  sec- 
ond, Kudur-Mabuk,  whom  the  inscriptions 
call  "  Conqueror  of  the  West,"  is  credited 
with  having  enlarged  and  beautified  the 
city  of  Ur,  which  he  made  his  capital,  thus 
ingratiating  himself  with  his  Chaldaean  sub- 
jects. Tradition  also  gives  him  the  honor 
of  restoring  the  old  Chaldaean  religion, 
which  his  predecessors  of  the  Elamite  dy- 
nasty had  discouraged.  The  temples  were 
repaired  and  the  worship  of  the  old  deities 
once  more  prevailed.  Kudur-Mabuk  was 
succeeded  by  his  son,  Arid-Sin,  the  last  of 
the  known  monarchs  of  the  Susianian,  or 
Elamite  dynasty,  which  ended  in  the  3'ear 
2052  B.  C. 

Then  came  the  third  dynasty  mentioned 
by  Berosus,  a  dj-nasty  consisting  of  eleven 
monarchs,  whose  aggregate  reigns  embrace 
a  period  of  only  forty-eight  years;  but 
neither  monumental  inscriptions  nor  tradi- 
tion afford  us  any  knowledge  concerning 
the  events  of  their  reigns.  The  fourth  d}-- 
nasty  recorded  by  Berosus,  one  embracing 
forty-nine  native  Chaldsean  kings,  reigned 
for  four  hundred  and  fiftj--seven  3-ears,  from 
2004  B.  C.  to  1546  B.  C. 

One  of  the  first  kings  of  the  fourth 
dynasty  was  Ismi-Dagon,  who  probably 
reigned  during  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  before  Christ,  and  who  sub- 
I  jecfted  As.syria  to  the  Chaldaean  supremacy. 
His  sou,  Shamas-Vul,  was  the  Chaldsean 
viceroy  over  Assj'ria,  and  built  a  temple  at 
Asshur.  The  monumental  in.scriptions  prove 
the  Chaldsean  ascendency  over  Assyria  at 
this  early  period,  the  last-named  countrj- 
being  governed  by  Chaldsean  viceroys.  Isini- 
Dagon  was  succeeded  on  the  Chaldsean 
throne  by  his  son,  Gurguna,  who  is  chieflj' 
distinguished  as  the  builder  of  the  great 
cemeteries  at  Ur,  among  the  most  wonderful 
of  the  ruins  of  Chaldaea.  The  next  king 
was  Naram-Sin,  who  erected  the  great  tem- 
ple at  Agana  and  fixed  his  capital  at  Babj-- 


112 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  K—  CIIALD.-EA. 


Ion,  which  had  at  this  time  become  the 
largest  city  of  Chaldaea.  Ur  had  for  some 
time  ceased  to  be  the  Chaldaean  capital; 
Erech,  or  Huruk,  having  taken  its  place; 
but  the  latter  city  now  gave  wa}'  to  Babylon, 
which  thenceforth  remained  the  capital  of 
the  empire. 

After  Naram-Sin,  who  reigned  about  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  liefore 
Christ,  followed  the  reign  of  Sin-Shada, 
who  built  the  upper  terrace  in  the  temple  of 
Erech,  now  the  ruins  of  Bowariyeh,  already 
described.  The  next  king  was  Zur-Sin,  the 
most  celebrated  sovereign  of  his  time.  He 
founded  the  city  of  Abu-Shahrein,  the  ruins 
of  which  testify  to  the  adoption  of  a  new 
style  of  archite(flure,  much  in  advance  of 
the  previous  style,  both  in  the  charadler  of 
its  strucfture  and  in  its  ornamental  richness. 
Here  also  we  get  a  better  idea  of  the  simple 
arts  of  life  prevalent  among  this  celebrated 
people  in  the  early  times.  Stone  knives, 
chisels  and  hatchets  are  everywhere  found 
among  the  ruins,  and  some  samples  of  gold 
and  bronze  have  also  been  discovered.  Or- 
naments for  the  person  were  also  made  out 
of  iron.  Of  Nur-Vul,  the  next  to  the  last 
of  the  kings  of  this  dynasty,  as  mentioned 
by  Berosus,  no  trace  has  been  found  on  the 
monuments.  Rim-Sin,  the  last  of  this 
dynasty,  is  mentioned  on  a  single  tablet  dis- 
covered in  the  ruins  of  Ur. 

In  the  3'ear  1546  B.  C,  Chaldaea  was 
conquered  by  an  Arab  chief  named  Kham- 
MURABi,  who  founded  the  Arabian  dynasty 
of  Chaldaean  monarchs — the  fifth  dynasty  in 
the  lists  of  Berosus,  and  in  which  he  in- 
cludes nine  kings;  but  the  names  of  fifteen 
monarchs  of  this  race  have  been  deciphered 
from  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  and  from 
the  tablets.  Khanimurabi  reigned  twenty- 
six  years,  and  was  a  wise  and  able  sover- 
eign. He  fully  appreciated  the  benefits  ac- 
cruing to  the  country  from  a  proper  sys- 
tem of  artificial  irrigation.  He  constructed 
a  canal  from  one  of  the  rivers  for  this  pur- 
pose; and  a  white  stone  tablet,  now  in  the 
Lotivre  at  Paris,  bears  an  inscription  which 
says  that  the  canal  cut  by  Khannnurabi 
proved  a  blessing  to  the  Babylonians,  that 


"it  changed  desert  plains  into  well-watered 
fields;  it  .spread  around  fertility  and  abund- 
ance." Khammurabi  also  eredled  several 
important  edifices,  one  of  which  was  a  new 
palace  at  Kalwadha,  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
present  city  of  Bagdad.  He  likewise  re- 
paired the  great  temple  of  the  Sun  at  Lar- 
sa,  or  Earrak  (now  Senkereh).  He  was 
succeeded  by  his  son,  Samsu-iluna,  whose 
name  has  only  been  found  on  one  series  of 
inscriptions,  and  of  whose  immediate  suc- 
cessors no  traces  can  be  found  for  three 
quarters  of  a  centur\^ 

The  next  known  Chaldaean  king  is  Kara- 
IN-DAS,  the  first  of  five  monarchs  during 
whose  reigns  intimate  relations  were  main- 
tained with  Assyria,  which  was  now  grad- 
ually rising  into  importance,  and  which 
eventually  .shook  off  the  Chaldaean  suprem- 
acy. Chaldaea  and  Assyria  were  during 
this  period  sometimes  united  by  treaties 
of  alliance  or  by  royal  marriages,  and  were 
sometimes  at  war  with  each  other.  When 
the  Chaldaean  king,  Kara-khar-das,  was 
overthrown  and  killed  in  an  insurredtion 
headed  by  Nazi-bugas,  an  Assyrian  army 
destroyed  the  insurredlionary  chief  and 
placed  the  brother  of  the  murdered  sover- 
eign upon  the  Chaldaean  throne.  Some  time 
afterward  Purna-puriyas,  King  of  Chal- 
daea, married  the  daughter  of  Asshur-upallit, 
King  of  Ass)Tia.  The  last  of  the  five 
kings  just  mentioned  was  Kurri-galzu,  of 
whose  reign  relics  have  been  disco\-ered  at 
Mugheir,  the  ancient  Ur,  and  at  Akkerkuf, 
the  latter  of  which  cities  is  said  to  have 
been  founded  by  this  monarch.  The  re- 
maining kings  of  the  fifth,  or  Arabian  dy- 
nasty are  Saga-raktigas,  the  builder  of  the 
temple  of  the  Sun  at  Sippara,  Ammidi- 
KAGA,  and  six  others  whose  reigns  were 
unimportant. 

In  the  year  1300  B.  C,  Tiglathi-Nin, 
King  of  Assyria,  invaded  Chaldaea,  took 
Babylon,  and  extended  his  supremacy  over 
this  ancient  Asiatic  kingdom.  Thus  ended 
the  Arabian  dynasty  in  Chaldaea;  and  the 
sixth  dynasty,  according  to  Berosus,  prob- 
ably A.s.syrian,  ascended  the  throne  of  Chal- 
daea,  which,  with  occasional  intermissions, 


CIVILIZATION. 


1.3 


remained  in  dependence  upon  Assyria 
thenceforth  until  625  B.  C,  the  forty-five 
kings  of  the  sixth  dynasty  being  merely 
Assyrian  viceroys.     The  Assj'rian  conquest 


of  Chaldsea  in  the  year  1300  B.  C.  is  gener- 
ally regarded  as  the  end  of  this  most  ancient 
of  Asiatic  empires — this  great  mother  of  Asi- 
atic civilization. 


KINGS   OF  CHALD^A. 


DYNASTY. 

B.  C.  to  B.  C. 

KINGS. 

EVENTS,  ETC. 

I. 

(Chaldtean). 

2286 

NiMROD 

*  *            *            * 

*  *            *            » 

Urukh 

iLGi  (son). 

*  *         *         * 

Founded  the  Empire. 
Built  numerous  temples. 

II. 

(Elamite). 

22S6 

2052 

Kudur-Nakhunta,    .    . 
(Zoroaster). 

*  *         »         * 

Kudur-Lagamer,  .   .   . 

*  *        *        * 

SiNTI-SHIL-KHAK. 

Kudur-Mabuk  (son), .  . 
Arid-Sin  (son). 

*  *         *         » 

Couquered  ChaUtea  B.  C.  2286. 

f  Contemporarj-  with  Abraham.      Led  two 
\     expeditions  into  Syria. 

Wars  in  Syria. 

III. 

2052 

2004 

*  *         *         * 

*  *         *         * 

IV. 
(Chaldasan). 

2004 

1546 

*  *         *         » 

*  *         *         * 

Ismi-Dagon 

GuRGUNA  (son),   .... 

*  »          *          * 

Naram-Sin. 

*  *          *          * 

Bii<aT  *  *  .A.T  (a  queeu). 
Sin-Shada  (sou). 
«         *         #         » 

ZUR-SlN. 

*  *             *             « 

f  Reigned  from  about  B.  C.  1S50  to  about  B. 

\      C.  1830. 

His  brother,  Shamas-Vul,  ruled  in  Assyria. 

V. 
(Arab). 

1546 

1300 

NUR-VUL 

RiM-SiN, 

Khammu-rabi 

Samsu-iluna  (son),    .    . 

*  *         *         * 
_«         *         *         * 

Kara-in-das 

Purna-puriyas 

Kara-kh.\r-das   (son)  \ 

Nazi-bugas 

Kurri-galzu   (brother 
of  Kara-khar-das).         ; 

*  *          *          * 

Reigned  from  about  B.  C.  15S6  to  B.  C.  1566. 
Reigned  from  about  B.  C.  1566  to  B.  C.  1546. 
Reigned  from  about  B.  C.  1546  to  B.  C.  1520. 
Reigued  from  about  B.  C.  1520  to  B.  C.  1500. 

f  Contemporary  with  Asshur-bel-nisi-su,  B.  C. 

I      1440- 

f  Contemporary   with   Buzur-Asshur,    B.    C. 

1      I 420- I 400. 

Contemporary  with  Asshur-upallit,  B.  C. 
1 400- 1 380. 

1300 

*          *          *         t 

Chaldaea  conquered  by  Tiglathi-Nin. 

SECTION    IV.— CHALDEAN    CIVILIZATION. 


HITS  we  have  seen  that  the 
Chaldaean  monarchy  was  the 
first  civil  government  in  Asia, 
and  that  its  three  most  illus- 
trious characters  were  Nimrod, 
the  founder  of  the  kingdom,  "the  mighty 


hunter  before  the  Lord;"  Urukh,  the  great 
architect,  the  mighty  temple-builder;  and 
Chedorlaomer,  the  warrior,  the  mighty  con- 
queror, who  nearly  four  thousand  years  ago 
marched  an  army  a  distance  of  twelve  hun- 
dred miles,  and  held  Syria  and  Palestine  in 


114 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  Y.—  CHALD.^A. 


siibjedlion  for  twelve  years,  and  who  was 
the  first  of  all  those  great  Oriental  conquer- 
ors who  within  the  last  forty  centuries  have 
built  up  vast  empires  in  Asia,  which  have 
in  larger  or  shorter  spaces  of  time  succes- 
sively crumbled  to  deca}-. 

In  speaking  of  this  ancient  empire,  Pro- 
fessor Rawlinsou  saj^s:  "The  Chaldsean 
monarchy  is  rather  curious  from  its  antiquity 
than  illustrious  from  its  great  names,  or  ad- 
mirable for  the  extent  of  its  dominions.  Less 
ancient  than  the  Egyptian,  it  claims  the  ad- 
vantage of  priority  over  ever\'  empire  or 
kingdom  which  has  grown  up  upon  the  soil 
of  Asia.  The  Aryan,  Turanian,  and  even 
Semitic  tribes,  appear  to  have  been  in  the 
nomadic  condition  when  the  Cushite  set- 
tlers of  lower  Babylonia  betook  themselves 
to  agriculture,  erecfled  temples,  built  cities 
and  established  a  strong  and  settled  govern- 
ment. The  leaven  which  was  to  spread  by  de- 
grees through  the  Asiatic  peoples  was  first 
deposited  on  the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf 
at  the  mouth  of  the  '  Great  River; '  and 
hence  civilization,  science,  letters,  art,  ex- 
tended themselves  northward  and  eastward 
and  westward.  Assyria,  Media,  Semitic 
Babylonia,  Persia,  as  they  derived  from 
Chaldasa  the  chara(5ter  of  their  writing,  .so 
were  they  indebted  to  the  same  countrj-  for 
their  general  notions  of  government  and  ad- 
ministration, for  their  architedlure,  for  their 
decorative  art,  and  still  more  for  their  science 
and  literature.  Each  people  no  doubt  mod- 
ified in  some  measure  the  boon  received,  add- 
ing more  or  less  of  its  own  to  the  common 
inheritance.  But  Chaldsea  stands  forth  as 
the  great  parent  and  original  in\'entress  of 
Asiatic  civilization,  without  any  rival  that 
can  reasonably  dispute  her  claim.  " 

It  was  believed  by  such  eminent  Gennan 
.scholars  and  antiquarians  as  Heeren,  Nie- 
buhr,  Bunsen,  and  Max  Miiller,  that  the 
ancient  Chaldseaus  belonged  to  the  Aramaic, 
or  Semitic  race,  and  that  they  were  thus 
kindred  with  the  A.ssyrians,  Syrians,  He- 
brews and  Arabs.  Herodotus  regarded  the 
Assyrians  and  Babylonians,  from  the  earliest 
times,  as  belonging  to  the  same  race  ;  but 
Berosus,    Diodorus    and    Pliny    considered 


them  as  ethnologically  different  peoples. 
Cla.ssical  and  other  traditions — sustained  by 
such  Greek  poets  as  Homer,  Hesiod  and 
Pindar — represent  the  early  inhabitants  of 
the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf  and  the  oc- 
cupants of  the  Nile  valley  as  the  same 
race,  calling  them  all  Ethiopians. 

The  Hebrew  Scriptures  also  regard  the 
people  of  these  two  regions  as  belonging  to 
a  kindred  race,  namely,  Hamites,  or  Cush- 
ites;  Cush,  the  father  of  Nimrod,  being  a 
son  of  Ham;  and  the  ancient  Ethiopians  be- 
ing called  the  people  of  Cush  ;  while  the 
Egyptians  were  regarded  as  the  posterity  of 
Misraim,  aLso  a  son  of  Ham.  Recent  philo- 
logical investigations  demonstrate  the  truth 
of  the  Scripture  view  of  the  national  affini- 
ties of  these  primitive  nations,  and  show 
the  language  of  the  primeval  Chaldees 
to  have  been  Ethiopic  or  Cushite,  thus 
ranking  them  as  belonging  to  the  same 
Hamitic  race  as  the  Egj'ptians  and  Ethi- 
opians. Although  the  predominant  por- 
tion of  the  early  Chaldaean  population 
was  Cushite,  or  Hamitic,  there  was  an  infu- 
sion of  Semitic,  Arj^au  and  Turanian  ele- 
ments. The  Semites — such  as  the  Syrians, 
Assyrians,  Hebrews  and  others — migrated 
from  Chaldsea  at  a  very  early  period  to  the 
northward  and  westward.  Accad  was  a 
Turanian  .settlement,  and  the  Aryans  occu- 
pied the  portions  of  the  countrj'  bordering 
on  Cissia,  likewise  called  Susiana,  or  Elam, 
whose  people  were  also  Ar>'ans.  The  name 
Chaldseans  was  unknown  to  these  early  peo- 
ple, but  was  given  them  by  Berosus  and  has 
been  used  by  writers  ever  since.  The  He- 
brew prophets — such  as  Isaiah,  Habakkuk 
and  others — spoke  of  the  Babylonians,  even 
to  the  latest  times,  as  Chaldseans.  Isaiah 
called  Babylon  the  "daughter  of  the  Chal- 
daeans, ' '  and  ' '  the  beauty  of  the  Chaldees' 
excellency."  In  a  restri(?led  sen.se,  the  term 
Chaldceans  was  applied  to  the  learned  men 
of  Babylon  to  the  latest  ancient  times.  Af- 
ter the  Assyrian  conquest  of  Chaldaea,  in  B. 
C.  1300,  there  was  an  admixture  of  new 
Semitic  elements  from  the  north,  so  that  in 
the  process  of  time  the  Chaldeans  became 
Semitized;  and  the  preponderating  portion 


cn'fijz.rno.y. 


115 


of  the  later  Babj-lonian  population  was 
Semitic,  while  the  Haniitic,  Aryan  and  Tu- 
ranian elements  occupied  a  subordinate 
place.  The  language  of  the  learned  in  Baby- 
lon in  later  times  was  the  classic  Chaldee, 
while  the  national  language  of  the  Semi- 
tized  Babylonians  was  akin  to  that  of  the 
Hebrews. 

At  an  early  period — earlier  than  2,000 
B.  C. — the  Chaldees  had  made  considerable 
progress  in  the  arts,  especially  in  archi- 
itedlure,  and  from  the  first  they  showed 
the  building  tendency  which  seemed  to  be 
instinctive  in  other  famous  Hamitic  nations, 
such  as  the  Eg^-ptians  and  Ethiopians.  The 
attempt  to  build  a  tower  ' '  which'  should 
reach  to  heaven,"  made  here,  as  mentioned 
in  the  Mosaic  narrative,  was  in  accordance 
with  the  general  spirit  of  the  Chaldees.  Out 
of  such  simple  and  rude  building  material  as 
brick  and  bitumen  they  construdled  edifices 
of  vast  size,  the  ruins  of  which  have  recently 
been  discovered  by  the  explorations  of  Lay^- 
ard  and  Botta.  These  vast  strudlures  were 
pyramidal  in  design,  and  were  built  in  suc- 
cessive steps  or  stages  to  a  considerable  alti- 
tude, and  so  placed  as  to  face  the  four  cardinal 
points  of  the  compass. 

Speaking  of  the  building  material  of  the 
Chaldees,  a  certain  writer  says :  ' '  Stone  and 
marble  were  even  more  rare  in  this  country 
than  wood,  but  the  clay  was  well  adapted 
for  the  manufa<5lure  of  bricks.  These, 
whether  dried  in  the  sun  or  burnt  in  kilns, 
became  so  hard  and  durable  that  now,  after 
the  lapse  of  so  many  centuries,  the  remains 
of  ancient  walls  preserve  the  bricks  unin- 
jured by  their  long  exposure  to  the  atmos- 
phere, and  retaining  the  impression  of  the 
inscriptions  in  the  arrow-headed  character 
as  perfeClly  as  if  they  had  only  just  been 
manufa(5tured.  Naphtha  and  bitumen,  or 
earthy  oil  and  pitch,  were  produced  in 
great  abundance  above  Babylon,  near  the 
modem  town  of  Hit.  The.se  served  as  sub- 
stitutes for  mortar  and  cement;  and  so  last- 
ing were  they,  that  the  layers  of  rushes  and 
palm-leaves  laid  between  the  courses  of 
bricks  as  a  building  material,  are  found  at 
this  day  in  the  ruins  of  Babylon  as  perfect  as 


if  a  year  had  not  elap.sed  since  they  were  put 
together. ' ' 

The  most  imposing  ruins  of  ancient  Chal- 
drea  are  their  temples,  two  of  which  have 
been  described.  The  temple  of  Abu-Shah- 
rein  was  similar  in  characfler  to  those  of 
Erech  and  Ur,  and  was  one  of  the  few  Chal- 
dean edifices  built  of  stone,  which  may  be 
accounted  for  by  the  proximity  of  a  stone- 
quarry  in  the  neighboring  Arabian  hills. 
In  this  massive  strucfture  are  also  marble, 
alabaster  and  agate,  skillfully  cut  and  pol- 
ished, while  gold  plates  and  gilt-headed 
nails  have  also  been  discovered  in  the  ruins. 
In  the  sacred  shrine  of  the  deity  to  whose 
worship  the  temple  was  consecrated,  the 
wood-work  and  images  of  the  god  were  or- 
namented. Like  the  Egyp^i^ii  Pyramids, 
the  Chaldtean  edifices  were  chiefly  remark- 
able for  their  grandeur  and  massive  propor- 
tions, v^'hile  architedlural  beauty  was  want- 
ing. 

In  the  cities  the  dwellings  were  built  of 
brick,  but  in  the  rural  districts  they  con- 
sisted of  reed  huts  plastered  with  slime. 
The  houses  of  even  the  rich  seem  to  have 
been  rude  and  coarse.  The  remains  of  a 
dwelling-house  have  been  found  among  the 
excavations  at  Ur,  in  which  the  foundation 
was  a  brick  platform  raised  above  the  sur- 
face, the  floors  were  of  bunit  bricks  well 
cemented  with  bitumen,  and  the  walls  were 
plastered  with  gypsum.  In  the  apartments 
of  a  house  discovered  at  Abu-Shahreiu  the 
walls  were  frescoed  with  designs  in  red, 
black  and  white;  and  figures  of  birds,  beasts 
and  men  were  skillfully  drawn  on  the  plaster 
of  the  walls.  The  Chaldsean  dwellings  usu- 
ally had  flat  wooden  roofs,  though  some- 
times there  were  arched  roofs  built  of  bricks 
cemented  with  bitumen. 

Next  to  their  architedlural  stni<5tures,  the 
most  remarkable  remains  of  the  ancient  Chal- 
dseans  are  their  burial-places.  The  immense 
number  of  ancient  tombs  discovered  in  what 
was  Chaldaea  proper  is  truly  wonderful. 
Large  sepulchers  are  filled  with  the  bones 
and  relics  of  the  dead.  At  Warka,  the 
ancient  Erech,  except  the  triangular  space 
between    the     three    principal    ruins,    the 


ii6 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— CHALD^A. 


whole  remainder  of  the  platform,  the  space 
within  the  walls,  and  a  wide  extent  of  the 
neighboring  desert,  are  filled  with  human 
bones  and  sepulcliers.  Coffins  are  heaped 
upon  coffins  from  thirty  to  sixty  feet,  and 
there  are  miles  on  miles  of  tombs  in  portions 
of  this  once-famous  laud.  The  most  striking 
of  these  burial-places  are  those  at  Warka, 
the  ancient  Erech;  at  Mugheir,  the  ancient 
Ur;  at  Abu-Shahrein  and  Tel-el-Lahm. 

The  tombs  are  of  three  kinds — brick 
vaults,  clay  coffins  shaped  like  a  dish  cover, 
and  clay  coffins  formed  of  two  large  jars 
placed  mouth  to  mouth  and  cemented  to- 
gether with  bitumen.  The  brick  vaults, 
principally  found  at  Mugheir,  are  seven  feet 
long,  three  and  a  half  feet  wide,  and  five 
feet  high.  The  floors  and  walls  of  these 
vaults  were  made  of  sun-dried  bricks  ce- 
mented together  with  mud  or  bitumen,  and 
the  side  walls  were  closed  in  above  with  an 
arch.  The  body  was  laid  to  rest  on  its  left 
side  on  a  matting  of  reeds  spread  upon  the 
floor.  The  fingers  of  the  right  hand  were 
placed  upon  a  copper  bowl  set  in  the  palm 
of  the  left.  The  head  rested  upon  a  brick 
for  a  pillow.  Articles  of  use  and  ornament 
were  placed  in  the  vault,  and  vessels  with 
food  and  drink  were  set  near  the  head  of  the 
departed.  The  remains  of  several  bodies 
are  in  many  cases  found  in  the  same  vault, 
and  one  vault  contained  eleven  skeletons. 
It  is  believed  from  this  that  the  brick  vaults 
were  family  sepulchers. 

Where  the  dish-cover  clay  coffins  were 
used,  the  body  was  laid  on  a  mat  spread 
over  a  sun-dried  brick  platform,  disposed  of 
in  the  same  manner  as  in  the  brick  vaults, 
and  surrounded  with  articles  of  food  and 
ornaments.  The  large  clay  coffins  shaped 
like  a  dish-cover,  seven  feet  long,  two  and 
a  half  wide  at  the  bottom,  and  two  or  three 
feet  high,  then  covered  the  body,  matting, 
utensils,  ornaments  and  all.  Never  were 
more  than  two  skeletons,  one  male  and  the 
other  female,  discovered  under  one  cover. 
Children  were  interred  under  covers  half  the 
size  of  those  for  adults.  These  tombs  were 
found  seven  or  eight  feet  under  ground  at 
Mugheir.      The  clay  coffins    consisting    of 


two  large  jars,  from  tn'o  and  a  half  to  three 
feet  deep  and  two  feet  in  diameter,  and  ce- 
mented together  with  bitumen,  as  found  at 
Mugheir  and  Tel-el-Lahm,  readily  contained 
a  full-sized  corpse  and  had  an  air-hole  at 
each  end  to  allow  the  gases  generated  by 
decomposition  to  escape. 

The  coffins  containing  the  bodies  of  the 
dead  were  placed  in  rows,  and  then  covered 
with  earth  so  as  to  form  a  mound.  These 
mounds  were  repeatedlj-  covered  with  fresh 
earth,  so  that  they  were  often  elevated  to  a 
height  of  sixty  feet  above  the  original  level 
of  the  plain.  The  mounds  were  carefully 
drained  by  means  of  tube-like  shafts  of  pot- 
tery, consisting  of  a  succession  of  rings  or 
joints,  two  feet  in  diameter  and  a  foot  and  a 
half  wide,  skillfully  put  together  and  ce- 
mented with  bitumen,  and  filled  with  masses 
of  broken  pottery'  to  resist  external  pressure. 
These  drains  reached  from  the  surface  to  the 
original  ground-level;  and  by  their  means 
the  sepulchral  mounds  have  been  protecfled 
from  dampness,  and  their  utensils,  orna- 
ments and  skeletons  have  been  preserved  to 
the  present  day,  and  appear  perfecfl  on  open- 
ing the  tombs,  but  usuallj^  crumble  to  dust 
when  touched. 

Monuments  have  also  been  exhumed  bear- 
ing inscriptions  in  the  aineiform,  or  wedge- 
shaped  charadlers,  the  deciphering  of  which, 
as  we  have  said,  has  given  us  new  light  on 
early  Chaldsean  history.  This  kind  of  writ- 
ing was  used  for  monumental  records,  and 
was  either  hewn  or  carved  in  rocks  and 
sculptures,  or  impressed  on  tiles  and  bricks. 
The  legends  stamped  upon  the  baked  bricks 
of  this  ancient  period  prove  the  extent  to 
which  this  kind  of  writing  was  in  use.  The 
earliest  date  that  can  be  assigned  to  its  use 
was  about  2000  B.  C,  and  it  was  little,  if  at 
all,  used  as  late  as  300  B.  C.  A  vast  d«^al 
of  labor  and  erudition  have  been  spent  in 
deciphering  these  cuneiform  inscriptions. 
The  great  inscription  of  Behistuu,  in  Persia, 
is  of  special  interest.  It  is  engraved  in  three 
forms  of  cuneiform  writing,  upon  the  per- 
pendicular face  of  a  mountain,  at  a  height 
of  three  hundred  feet;  and  gives  an  account 
of  the   genealogy   of  Darius,  his   exploits. 


CIVILIZATION. 


117 


1— S.-TT.  H. 


iiS 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— CHALD^A. 


and  the  provinces  of  his  empire.  Tliis  in- 
scription was  deciphered  by  Sir  Henry  Raw- 
linson. 

The  writing  of  the  Chaldees  is  well-nigh 
as  abundant  as  that  of  their  Hamitic  kins- 
men, the  Egyptians.  The  writing  was  im- 
pressed on  the  clay  while  it  was  moist  and 
plastic.  The  inscriptions  on  the  bricks  re- 
cord the  history  of  the  building  in  which 
they  are  found,  the  name  of  the  monarch 
who  built  it,  his  titles  and  his  fame.  The 
inscriptions  on  the  clay  tablets  are  usually 
of  a  private  character,  relating  to  such  mat- 
ters as  deeds,  contracfts  and  personal  records. 
The  writing  is  from  left  to  right,  except  on 
signet-cylinders,  on  which  it  is  reversed, 
because  of  the  manner  in  which  it  was 
stamped,  as  described  in  a  previous  sedlion. 
The  legend  on  the  bricks  was  always  stamped 
in  the  form  of  a  square  in  the  center;  and 
was  in  some  cases  impressed  upon  the  clay, 
and  in  others  was  cut  or  engraved  in  the  sur- 
face with  some  implement.  On  many  of  the 
tablets  the  signet-cylinder  of  the  maker  or 
contradtor  was  rolled  across  the  surface, 
showing  the  wearer's  motto  and  seal  in  re- 
lief These  tablets  were  preserved  as  family 
records,  just  as  moderns  file  important  docu- 
ments for  preservation.  These  inscriptions 
abound  in  all  the  ruins  of  ancient  Chaldsea. 

The  earthenware  coffins  and  drainage- 
shafting,  besides  the  many  jars,  vases  and 
drinking-vessels,  attest  the  skill  of  this 
ancient  people  in  pottery  from  the  earliest 
ages  of  their  history.  On  many  burnt-clay 
tablets  are  figures  representing  lions,  bulls 
and  men;  in  most  of  which  are  illustrated 
deadly  combats  between  men  and  lions. 

The  Chaldees  fashioned  arms,  implements 
and  ornaments  from  various  metals.  In  the 
oldest  ruins  are  discovered  flint  knives, 
hatchets,  stone  hammers  and  occasional 
articles  of  bronze,  such  as  arrow-heads, 
knives,  hatchets  and  sickles.  Articles  of 
iron,  gold  and  copper  have  been  discovered 
in  great  abundance  in  the  mounds.  Orna- 
ments were  usually  made  of  iron  or  gold, 
while  arms  and  weapons  were  generally 
fashioned  from  copper  or  bronze.  The 
primitive  Chaldees  were  also  celebrated  for 


the  fine  cloths  and  delicate  textile  fabrics 
manufa(5tured  by  their  looms,  showing  that 
the  spinner's  and  weaver's  art  had  attained 
a  high  degree  of  skill  and  perfedtion  among 
this  renowed  primeval  race. 

The  Chaldees  were  also  skillful  in  the  art 
of  cutting,  polishing  and  engraving  gems, 
some  of  their  work  in  this  art  rivaling  the 
best  modem  specimens.  The  signets  and 
seals  were  of  this  class,  and  several  of  them 
have  been  deciphered  and  rendered  in  En- 
glish. The  inscription  on  the  seal  of  Urukh 
has  been  translated  as  follows:  "The  sig- 
net of  Urukh,  the  pious  chief.  King  of  Ur, 
High  Priest  of  NifFer."  On  Ilgi's  seal  was 
the  following  legend:  "To  the  manifesta- 
tion of  Nergal,  King  of  Bit-Zida,  of  Zur- 
guUa,  for  the  saving  of  the  life  of  Ilgi,  the 
powerful  hero,  the  King  of  Ur,  son  of  Urukh 

*  *  *  May  his  name  be  preserved."  A 
signet-cylinder  of  one  of  the  Sin  kings  bears 
this  inscription:  "Sin,  the  powerful  chief, 
the  King  of  Ur,  the  King  of  the  four  races 

*  *  *  his  seal."  Some  of  the  cylinders 
bear  neither  figures  nor  inscriptions;  while 
others  have  no  legend,  but  bear  figures  and 
symbols.  They  were  usually  of  jasper  oi 
chalcedony,  ai:d  were  used  to  impress  the 
seals  of  their  owners  on  clay  tablets.  They 
were  half  an  inch  in  diameter  and  three 
inches  long.  The  cylinder  was  rolled  upon 
the  tablet  bj-  means  of  a  copper  or  bronze 
parallelogram,  one  side  of  which  was  passed 
through  a  hole  bored  through  its  axis.  It 
was  suspended  from  the  owner's  neck  or 
waist  by  means  of  a  string  or  chain  attached 
to  a  metal  frame.  The  design  of  the  wearer's 
seal  was  cut  in  reverse  on  the  surface  of  the 
signet,  leaving  the  impression  in  relief 

The  Chaldees  likewise  engaged  in  com- 
merce with  other  countries.  Their  trading 
caravans  journeyed  to  the  Ar>-an  and  Tu- 
ranian countries  of  Central  Asia,  and  the 
"ships  of  Ur"  navigated  the  Persian  Gulf 
and  traded  with  the  people  on  its  shores. 

The  Chaldaeans  found  cheap  and  abun- 
dant articles  of  food  in  the  luxuriant  growth 
of  the  date-palm  and  the  abundant  yield  of 
such  cereals  as  wheat,  barley,  millet  and 
sesame;  in  addition  to  which  the  wealthier 


cnii.r/.ATiON. 


TIQ 


classes  induljjcd  in  animal  food,  snch  as 
fish,  chickens  and  the  wild  boar. 

The  worship  of  the  heavenly  bodies  led 
the  primitive  Chaldces  at  an  early  day  to 
the  study  of  astronomy  and  chronology. 
Diodorus  declares  that  the  Chaldasans  were 
far  in  advance  of  all  other  ancient  nations  in 
their  knowledge  of  the  starry  heavens.  This 
celebrated  people  discovered  and  recorded 
the  relation  of  the  sun's  circuit  to  the  other 
cycles  of  the  solar  system.  They  observ-ed 
that  the  sun's  apparent  course  through  the 
firmament  equals  about  twelve  rounds  of 
the  moon,  and  for  this  reason  they  divided 
the  year  into  twelve  months  of  thirty  days 
each,  and  when  they  discovered  the  inaccu- 
racy of  this  sj-stem  they  introduced  new  cal- 
culations, re<5tifying  the  calendar  so  as  to 
ag^ee  with  the  sidereal  year  of  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  days  and  six  hours.  By  their 
obser\-ation  of  the  sun's  course  through  the 
heavens  the}-  were  able  to  establish  the 
twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac;  and  by  observ- 
ing the  variation  of  the  orbits  of  the  planets 
from  that  of  the  sun  thej-  were  enabled  to  fix 
the  limits  of  the  zodiacal  signs,  and  to  divide 
each  sign  into  thirty  degrees  by  the  progress 
of  the  sun.  By  watching  the  moon's  phases 
they  adopted  seven  days  as  the  length  of 
the  week.  They  further  divided  each  day 
into  twelve  hours;  each  hour  into  sixty,  or 
five  times  twelve,  minutes;  and  thus  estab- 
lished the  basis  of  the  duodecimal  method 
of  calculation.  Two  times  twelve,  or 
twenty-four,  finger-widths  was  fixed  upon 
as  the  measure  of  a  aibit.  A  cycle  of  sixty- 
years  was  called  a  soss;  ten  times  sixty  was 
a  7ier;  and  the  square  of  sixt>',  or  thirty-six 
centuries,  was  a  sar. 

They  measured  distances  in  the  heavens 
by  taking  the  width  of  the  sun's  disc  as  a 
unit.  By  comparing  the  quantitj^  of  water 
di.scharged  through  an  orifice  in  a  jar  in  the 
time  occupied  by  the  sun  in  crossing  the 
horizon  on  the  morning  of  the  equinox  with 
the  amount  discharged  through  the  same 
orifice  at  the  next  sunrise,  they  discovered 
that  the  amount  discharged  between  the  two 
risings  of  the  sun  was  seven  hundred  and 
twenty  times  the  amount  discharged  dur- 


ing sunrise  on  the  equinocflial  moniing. 
They  thus  inferred  that  the  sun's  orbit 
measured  seven  hundred  and  twenty  times 
his  disc,  and  from  this  they  derived  a  unit 
to  measure  space  and  time.  In  regard  to 
space  this  unit  constituted  half  a  degree,  and 
in  the  calculation  of  time  the  same  unit 
equaled  two  minutes,  or  one-thirtieth  of  an 
hour.  A  stadium  was  the  distance  an  active 
foot-courier  could  walk  in  one  unit  of  time, 
or  two  miiuites;  and  the  distance  he  could 
walk  in  thirty  units,  sixty  minutes,  or  one 
hour,  at  the  same  ratio  of  speed,  was  called 
a.  parasang.  The  stadium  was  divided  into 
three  hundred  and  sixty  cubits,  and  sixty 
cubits  was  called  ■a.  plcthron. 

The  Chaldaeans  discovered  and  recorded 
the  fact  that  each  cycle  of  the  moon's 
eclipses  is  completed  in  a  ]3eriod  of  two  hun- 
dred and  twentj--three  months,  and  from 
this  discovery  they  computed  the  length  of 
the  synodic  and  periodic  months  so  accu- 
rately that  modem  astronomers  have  found 
the  calculation  to  fall  short  of  less  than  five 
seconds  of  our  time.  They  carefully  re- 
corded all  the  results  of  their  observations. 
The  Greek  Callisthenes,  who  had  accom- 
panied the  expedition  of  Alexander  the 
Great,  sent  to  Aristotle  from  Babylon  a 
series  of  tablets  on  which  were  inscriptions 
recording  astronomical  observations  dating 
as  far  back  as  1903  years  before  the  year  331 
B.  C,  the  3-ear  that  Alexander  entered  that 
city.  These  observ-ations  would  therefore 
reach  back  2234  years  before  Christ. 

The  Chaldaeans  had  also  made  considerable 
progress  in  arithmetic,  and  they  employed 
two  systems  of  notation — decimal  and  duo- 
decimal. They  used  cuneiform,  or  wedge- 
shaped  and  arrow-headed  characters,  to  re- 
present numbers.  Their  system  of  weights 
was  based  upon  their  system  of  measures. 
A  cubit  of  water,  which  weighed  sixty-six 
pounds,  was  divided  into  sixtj'  logs,  each  log 
measuring  about  five-sixths  of  a  pint.  The 
log  was  the  unit  of  measure;  and  its  weight, 
called  a  niiiia,  was  the  unit  of  weight.  A 
duck-shaped  stone  belonging  to  King  Ilgi 
has  been  discovered  bearing  the  inscription, 
"Ten  minse  of  Ilgi,"     Like  most  other  na- 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— CHALD^A. 


tions,  the  Chaldasans  had  one  sj'stem  of 
weights  for  the  ordinary'  articles  of  the  mar- 
ket-place, and  another  system  for  the  pre- 
cious metals  and  gems.  Circular  pieces  or 
rings,  called  talents,  shekels,  etc. — names 
afterwards  used  by  the  Hebrews  and  the 
Greeks — were  taken  as  units  in  weighing 
gold  and  silver. 

Although  the  brilliant  intellecftual  adtivity 
of  Chaldasa  ceased  more  than   three  thou- 


sand years  ago,  and  its  massive  architectural 
structures  have  slumbered  in  eternal  repose 
beneath  the  sands  and  dust  of  more  than 
thirty  centuries,  the  grand  mental  triumphs 
of  its  venerable  civilization  j-et  remain,  as  a 
permanent  legacy  to  posterity — the  ground- 
work of  the  science  and  learning  in  which 
they  have  ever  since  been  recognized  as  the 
pioneers — the  wonder  and  admiration  of  the 
ages. 


SECTION    v.— CHALDEAN    COSMOGONY    AND    RELIGION. 


EROSUS  begins  his  history  by 
recounting  the  Chaldsean  tra- 
ditions regarding  the  creation 
of  the  world  and  the  origin  of 
the  human  race.  The  follow- 
ing is  an  account  of  the  Chaldaean  cosmo- 
gony: "In  the  beginning  all  was  darkness 
and  water,  and  therein  were  generated  mon- 
strous animals  of  strange  and  peculiar  forms. 
There  were  men  with  two  wings,  and  some 
even  with  four,  and  with  two  faces;  and 
others  with  two  heads,  a  man's  and  a 
woman's,  on  one  body;  and  there  were  men 
with  the  heads  and  horns  of  goats,  and  men 
with  hoofs  like  horses,  and  some  with  the 
upper  parts  of  a  man  joined  to  the  lower 
parts  of  a  horse,  like  centaurs;  and  there 
were  bulls  with  human  heads,  dogs  with 
four  bodies  and  with  fishes'  tails,  men  and 
horses  with  dogs'  heads,  creatures  with  the 
heads  and  bodies  of  horses,  but  with  the 
tails  of  fish,  and  other  animals  mixing  the 
forms  of  various  beasts.  Moreover,  there 
were  monstrous  fish  and  reptiles  and  ser- 
pents, and  divers  other  creatures,  which 
had  borrowed  something  from  each  other's 
shapes;  of  all  which  the  likenesses  are  still 
preser\-ed  in  the  temple  of  Bel.  A  woman 
ruleth  them  all,  by  name  Omorka,  which  is 
in  Chaldee  Thalatth,  and  in  Greek  Thalassa 
(or  'the  sea').  Then  Bel  appeared,  and 
split  the  woman  in  twain;  and  of  the  one 
half  of  her  he  made  the  heaven  and  of  the 
other  half  the  earth;    and  the  beasts  that 


were  in  her  he  caused  to  perish.  And  he 
split  the  darkness,  and  divided  the  heaven 
and  the  earth  asunder,  and  put  the  world  in 
order;  and  the  animals  that  could  not  bear 
the  light  perished.  Bel,  upon  this,  seeing 
that  the  earth  was  desolate,  yet  teeming 
with  produiftive  power,  commanded  one  of 
the  gods  to  cut  off  his  head,  and  to  mix  the 
blood  which  flowed  forth  with  earth,  and 
form  men  therewith,  and  beasts  that  could 
bear  the  light.  So  man  was  made,  and  was 
intelligent,  being  a  partaker  of  the  divine 
wisdom.  Likewise  Bel  made  the  stars,  and 
the  sun  and  moon,  and  the  five  planets." 

There  is  a  remarkable  likeness  between 
certain  Chaldaean  and  Jewish  legends,  such 
as  the  traditions  of  the  destrudtion  of  man- 
kind by  a  great  Flood,  because  of  its  wicked- 
ness, and  the  Tower  of  Babel  and  dispersion 
of  the  human  race.  Among  .some  claj'  tab- 
lets brought  from  Assyria  to  London  by  Mr. 
George  Smith  are  a  series  of  fragments 
which,  joined  to  some  smaller  pieces  in  the 
British  Museum  coUecftion,  give  the  history 
of  the  world  from  the  Creation  down  to  some 
period  after  the  fall  of  man.  Mr.  Smith 
succeeded  in  translating  these  legends  in 
1875,  and  the  following  is  his  brief  account 
of  the  contents  of  the  tablets:  "Whatever 
the  primitive  account  ma)'  have  been  from 
which  the  earlier  part  of  the  Book  of  Gene- 
sis was  copied, -it  is  evident  that  the  brief 
narrative  given  in  the  Pentateuch  omits  a 
number  of  incidents  and  explanations — for 


COSMOGONY  AND    RlilJClON. 


121 


instance,  as  to  the  origin  of  evil,  the  fall  of 
the  angels,  the  wickedness  of  the  serpent, 
etc.  Such  points  as  these  are  included  in 
the  cuneiform  narrative." 

Mr.  Smith  then  proceeds  to  give  a  sketch 
of  the  Assyrian  cosmogony,  as  follows:  ' '  The 
narrative  on  the  Assyrian  tablets  commences 
with  a  description  of  the  period  before  the 
world  was  created,  when  there  existed  a 
chaos  or  confusion.  The  desolate  and  empty 
state  of  the  universe  and  the  generation  by- 
chaos  of  monsters  are  vividly  given.  The 
chaos  is  presided  over  by  a  female  power 
named  Tisalat  and  Tiamat,  corresponding  to 
the  Thalatth  of  Berosus;  but  as  it  proceeds 
the  Assyrian  account  agrees  rather  with  the 
Bible  than  with  the  short  account  from  Bero- 
sus. We  are  told,  in  the  inscriptions,  of  the 
fall  of  the  celestial  being  who  appears  to 
correspond  to  Satan.  In  his  ambition  he 
raises  his  hand  against  the  san(fluar\^  of  the 
God  of  heaven,  and  the  description  of  him 
is  really  magnificent.  He  is  represented 
riding  in  a  chariot  through  celestial  space, 
surrounded  by  the  storms,  with  the  light- 
ning playing  before  him.,  and  wielding  a 
thunderbolt  as  a  weapon.  This  rebellion 
leads  to  a  war  in  heaven  and  the  conquest 
of  the  powers  of  evil,  the  gods  in  due  course 
creating  the  universe  in  stages,  as  in  the 
Mosaic  narrative,  sur\'eying  each  step  of  the 
work  and  pronouncing  it  good.  The  divine 
work  culminates  in  the  creation  of  man, 
who  is  made  upright  and  free  from  evil,  and 
endowed  hy  the  gods  with  the  noble  faculty' 
of  speech.  The  Deity  then  delivers  a  long 
address  to  the  newly-created  being,  instruct- 
ing him  in  all  his  duties  and  privileges,  and 
pointing  out  the  glorj-  of  his  state.  But 
this  condition  of  blessing  does  not  last  long 
before  man,  yielding  to  temptation,  falls;  and 
the  Deity  then  pronounces  upon  him  a  terri- 
ble curse,  invoking  on  his  head  all  the  evils 
which  have  since  afflicted  humanity." 

After  his  mythical  account  of  the  Crea- 
tion, Berosus  mentions  a  sea-monster,  half 
man  and  half  fish,  named  Oan,  who  came 
out  of  the  deep  to  teach  men  language  and 
letters,  astronomy,  the  arts,  agriculture  and 
all  that  pertains  to  civilization.     During  the 


fabulous  reigns  of  the  ten  antediluvian  kings 
of  Chaldaea,  there  appeared  at  different  times 
six  other  fish-monsters  who,  like  Oan,  in- 
strucfled  mankind.  The  ten  kings  whom  Be- 
rosus mentions  as  reigning  in  Chaldoea  during 
the  antediluvian  period,  and  who  correspond 
in  number  with  the  ten  patriarchs  of  the  same 
period  mentioned  in  the  Mo.saic  record,  will 
now  be  named  with  the  lengths  of  their 
reigns.  Alorus,  a  Chaldaean,  reigned  36,000 
years;  Aloparus,  son  of  Alorus,  10,800  years; 
Almelon,  a  native  of  Sippara,  46,800  years; 
Ammenon,  a  Chaldaean,  43,200  years;  Ame- 
galarus,  of  Sippara,  64,800  years;  Daonus, 
of  Sippara,  36,000  years;  Edorankhns,  of 
Sippara,  64,800  years;  Amempsinus,  a  Chal- 
dsean,  36,000  years;  Otiartes,  a  Chaldjean, 
28,000  years;  and  Xisuthrus,  the  Chaldaean 
Noah,  64,800  years — the  ten  reigns  covering 
a  period  of  432,000  years. 

The  Chaldaean  or  Babylonian  account  of 
the  Deluge,  as  narrated  by  Berosus,  is  as 
follows:  "The  god  Bel  appeared  to  Xisu- 
thrus (Noah)  in  a  dream,  and  warned  him 
that  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  the  month  Dae- 
sius,  mankind  would  be  destroj'ed  hy  a  del- 
uge. He  bade  him  bur>'  in  Sippara,  the  City 
of  the  Sun,  the  extant  writings,  first  and 
last;  and  build  a  ship,  and  enter  therein 
with  his  family  and  his  close  friends;  and 
fumi.sh  it  with  meat  and  drink;  and  place  on 
board  winged  fowl,  and  four-footed  beasts 
of  the  earth;  and  when  all  was  ready,  set 
sail.  Xisuthrus  asked  '  Whither  he  was  to 
sail?'  and  was  told,  'To  the  gods,  with  a 
prayer  that  it  might  fare  well  with  mankind.' 
Then  Xisuthrus  was  not  disobedient  to  the 
vision,  but  built  a  ship  fifteen  stadia  (3125 
feet)  in  length,  and  six  stadia  (1250  feet) 
in  breadth;  and  colledled  all  that  had  been 
commanded  him,  and  put  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren and  close  friends  on  board.  The  flood 
came;  and  as  soon  as  it  ceased,  Xisuthrus 
let  loose  some  birds,  which,  finding  neither 
food  nor  a  place  where  they  could  rest,  came 
back  to  the  ark.  After  some  days  he  again 
sent  out  the  birds,  which  again  returned  to 
the  ark,  but  with  feet  covered  with  mud. 
Sent  out  a  third  time,  the  birds  returned  no 
more,  and  Xisuthrus  knew  that  land  had 


122 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— CHALDALA. 


reappeared;  so  he  removed  some  of  the  cov- 
ering of  the  ark,  and  looked,  and  behold! 
the  vessel  had  grounded  on  a  mountain. 
Then  Xisuthrus  went  forth  with  his  wife 
and  his  daughter,  and  his  pilot,  and  fell 
down  and  worshiped  the  earth,  and  built 
an  altar,  and  offered  sacrifice  to  the  gods; 
after  which  he  disappeared  from  sight,  to- 
gether with  those  who  had  accompanied 
him.  They  who  had  remained  in  the  ark 
and  not  gone  forth  with  Xisuthrus,  now  left 
it  and  searched  for  him,  and  .shouted  out  his 
name;  but  Xisuthrus  was  not  .seen  any  more. 
Only  his  voice  answered  them  out  of  the  air, 
saying,  'Worship  the  gods;  for  because  I 
worshiped  them,  am  I  gone  to  dwell  with 
the  gods;  and  they  who  were  with  me  have 
shared  the  same  honor. '  And  he  bade  them 
return  to  Babylon,  and  recover  the  writings 
buried  at  Sippara,  and  make  them  known 
among  men;  and  he  told  them  that  the  land 
in  which  they  then  were  was  Armenia.  So 
they,  when  they  had  heard  all,  sacrificed  to 
the  gods  and  went  their  way  on  foot  to  Baby- 
lon, and,  having  reached  it,  recovered  the 
buried  writings  from  Sippara,  and  built 
many  cities  and  temples,  and  restored  Baby- 
lon. Some  portion  of  the  ark  still  continues 
in  Annenia,  in  the  Gordiasan  (Kurdish) 
mountains;  and  persons  scrape  off  the  bitu- 
men from  it  to  bring  awa>',  and  this  they 
use  as  a  remedy  to  avert  misfortunes." 

The  Assyrian  inscriptions  discovered  by 
George  Smith  give  an  account  of  the  Del- 
uge nuich  resembling  the  narrative  of  the 
same  event  by  Berosus.  Among  the  ruins 
of  the  palace  of  the  A.ssyrian  king  Asshur- 
bani-pal,  tablets  have  been  di.scovered  from 
which  the  account  of  the  Deluge  has  been 
deciphered,  agreeing  in  some  particulars 
with  the  Chaldsean  tradition.  The  legend 
found  recorded  on  the  tablets  states  that  the 
god  Hea  commanded  Sisit  to  build  a  ship  of 
specified  size  and  to  launch  it  on  the  deep, 
as  he  intended  to  detroy  the  wicked.  Then 
Hea  said :  ' '  When  the  flood  comes  which  I 
will  send  thou  shalt  enter  the  ship,  and  into 
the  midst  of  it  thou  shalt  bring  thy  com, 
thy  goods,  thy  gods,  thy  gold  and  silver, 
thy  slaves   male   and   female,    the   sons  of 


the  army,  the  wild  and  tame  animals;  and 
all  that  thou  hearest  thou  shalt  do.  And 
Sisit  gathered  together  all  his  possessions  of 
silver  and  gold,  all  that  he  had  of  the 
seeds  of  life,  and  caused  all  of  his  .slaves, 
male  and  female,  to  go  into  the  .ship.  The 
wild  and  tame  beasts  of  the  field  also  he 
caused  to  enter,  and  all  the  sons  of  the  army. 
And  Shamas,  the  Sun-god,  made  a  flood, 
and  said:  'I  will  cause  rain  to  fall  heavily 
from  heaven;  go  into  the  ship  and  shut  the 
door.'  Overcome  with  fear  Sisit  entered 
into  the  .ship,  and  on  the  morning  of  the 
day  fixed  by  Shamas  the  storm  began  to 
blow  from  the  ends  of  heaven,  and  Vul 
thundered  in  the  midst  of  heaven,  and  Nebc 
came  forth,  and  over  the  mountains  and 
plains  came  the  gods,  and  Nergal  the  De- 
stroyer overthrew,  and  Nin  came  forth  and 
dashed  down;  the  gods  made  ruin;  in  their 
brightness  they  swept  over  the  earth.  The 
storm  went  over  the  nations;  the  flood  of 
Vul  reached  up  to  heaven;  brother  did  not 
see  brother;  the  lightsome  earth  became  a 
desert,  and  the  flood  destroyed  all  living 
things  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Even  the 
gods  were  afraid  of  the  storm,  and  sought 
refuge  in  the  heaven  of  Ana;  like  hounds 
drawing  in  their  tails,  the  gods  seated  theni- 
seh-es  on  their  thrones,  and  Ishtar,  the  great 
goddess,  .spake:  'The  world  has  turned  to 
sin,  and  therefore  I  have  proclaimed  destruc- 
tion. I  have  begotten  men,  and  now  they 
fill  the  .sea  like  the  children  of  fishes. '  And 
the  gods  upon  their  .seats  wept  with  her. 
On  the  se\-enth  da}-  the  storm  abated,  which 
had  destroyed  like  an  earthquake,  and  the 
sea  began  to  dry.  Sisit  perceived  the  move- 
ment of  the  sea.  Like  reeds  floated  the 
corpses  of  the  evil-doers  and  all  who  had 
turned  to  .sin.  Then  Sisit  opened  the  win- 
dow, and  the  light  fell  upon  his  face,  and 
the  ship  was  stayed  upon  Mount  Nizir,  and 
could  not  pass  over  it.  Then  on  the  seventh 
day  Sisit  sent  forth  a  dove,  but  she  found 
no  place  of  rest,  and  returned.  Then  he 
sent  a  swallow,  which  also  returned;  and 
again  a  raven,  which  saw  the  corpses  in  the 
water  and  ate  them,  and  returned  no  more. 
Then  Sisit  released  the  beasts  to  the  four 


COSAKXiONV  AND    REIJGION. 


123 


winds  of  heaven,  and  jiouixd  a  libation,  and 
built  an  altar  upon  the  top  of  the  mountain, 
and  cut  seven  herbs,  and  the  sweet  savor  of 
the  sacrifice  caused  the  gods  to  assemble, 
and  Sisit  prayed  that  Bel  might  not  come  to 
the  altar.  For  Bel  had  made  the  storm  and 
sunk  the  people  in  the  deep,  and  wished  in 
his  anger  to  destroy  the  ship,  and  allow  no 
man  to  escape.  Nin  opened  his  mouth, 
and  spoke  to  the  warrior  Bel:  'Who  would 
then  be  left?'  And  Hea  spoke  to  him: 
'  Captain  of  the  gods,  instead  of  the  storm 
let  lions  and  leopards  increase,  and  dimini.sh 
mankind;  let  famine  and  pestilence  desolate 
the  land  and  destroy  mankind.'  When  the 
sentence  of  the  gods  was  passed,  Bel  came 
into  the  midst  of  the  ship  and  took  Sisit  by 
the  hand  and  condudted  him  forth,  and 
caused  his  wife  to  be  brought  to  his  side, 
and  purified  the  earth,  and  made  a  covenant; 
and  Sisit  and  his  wife  and  his  people  were 
carried  away  like  gods,  and  Sisit  dwelt  in  a 
distant  land  at  the  mouth  of  the  rivers. ' ' 

Traditions  of  a  great  Flood  have  been  pre- 
valent in  all  countries  subject  to  overflows 
of  rivers,  with  the  exception  of  Egypt, 
where  the  annnal  inundation  was  .so  regular. 
Legends  like  those  of  Chaldasa  and  Assyria 
have  been  discovered  among  the  inhabitants 
of  Annenia,  Greece,  India  and  all  countries 
expcsed  to  dangerous  floods.  The  account 
of  the  Deluge  as  narrated  by  Moses  is  a 
record  of  the  same  story  as  given  by  Berosus 
and  as  found  inscribed  upon  the  Assyrian 
tablets.  It  is  not  known  when  the  great 
Flood  occurred  in  Chaldsea,  and  the  dates 
assigned  by  Berosus  are  fabulous,  as  are  his 
accounts  of  the  antediluvian  dynasty-  and  the 
first  postdiluvian  dynasty  in  Chaldcea. 

"  In  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  London 
Academy,  in  the  year  1875,  Mr.  Sayce 
showed  that  the  Phoenician  legends  fomi,  as 
it  were,  the  link  between  the  Chaldaean  and 
the  Hebrew  so  far  as  the  so-called  Elohistic 
portion  of  Genesis  is  concerned;  this  being 
especially  noticeable  in  the  legend  of  the 
Creation  and  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac.  Mr.  Sayce 
also  explained  the  very  close  resemblance 
between  the  Babvlonian  and  Jewish  legends 
of  the  Garden  of  Eden,  the  Deluge  and  the 


Tower  of  Babel,    the  Phrrnician  analogies 
failing  us  here  altogether. ' ' 

The  following  is  the  Chaldaean  account  of 
the  Tower  of  Babel,  as  related  by  Berosus: 
' '  The  earth  was  still  of  one  language,  when 
the  primitive  men,  who  were  proud  of  their 
strength  and  stature,  and  despi.sed  the  gods 
as  their  inferiors,  erecfted  a  tower  of  vast 
height,  in  order  that  they  might  mount  to 
heaven.  And  the  tower  was  now  near  to 
heaven,  when  the  gods  caused  the  winds  to 
blow  and  overturned  the  strudlure  upon  the 
men,  and  made  them  speak  with  divers 
tongues ;  whereupon  the  city  was  called 
Babylon." 

Sa)-s  Rawlinson,  concerning  Chaldaean 
mythology: ' '  The  striking  resemblance  of  the 
Chaldaean  system  to  that  of  classical  mythol- 
ogy seems  worthy  of  particular  attention. 
This  resemblance  is  too  general,  and  too  close 
in  some  respedls,  to  allow  of  the  supposition 
that  mere  accident  has  produced  the  coinci- 
dence. In  the  Pantheons  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  in  that  of  Chaldasa,  the  same  gen- 
eral grouping  is  to  be  recognized;  the  same 
genealogical  succession  is  not  unfrequently 
to  be  traced;  and  in  some  cases  even  the 
familiar  names  and  titles  of  classical  divini- 
ties admit  of  the  most  curious  illustrations 
and  explanations  from  Chaldaean  sources. 
We  can  .scarcely  doubt  but  that,  in  some 
way  or  other,  there  was  a  communication  of 
beliefs — a  passage  in  very  early  times,  from 
the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf  to  the  lands 
washed  by  the  Mediterranean,  of  mytholo- 
gical notions  and  ideas.  It  is  a  probable 
conje(5lure  that  '  among  the  primitive  tribes 
who  dwelt  on  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates, 
when  the  cuneiform  alphabet  was  invented, 
and  when  such  writing  was  first  applied  to 
the  purposes  of  religion,  a  Scythic  or  Scytho- 
Arian  race  existed,  who  subsequently  mi- 
grated to  Europe  and  brought  with  them 
those  mythical  traditions  which,  as  objedls 
of  popular  belief,  had  been  mixed  up  in 
the  nascent  literature  of  their  native  coun- 
trj','  and  that  these  traditions  were  passed 
on  to  the  classical  nations,  who  were  in  part 
descended  from  this  Scythic  or  Scytho- 
Arian  people." 


124 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— CHALD.EA. 


The  religion  of  Chaldsea,  or  Babj-lonia, 
was  from  the  most  ancient  times  a  gross 
polytheism,  and  was  a  kind  of  Sabsean  wor- 
ship, the  heavenlj'  bodies  being  objecfls  of 
adoration  and  represented  by  their  special 
deities.  L,ocal  divinities  abounded,  every 
town  being  under  the  protedlion  of  some 
particular  deity.  The  Chaldaean  gods  and 
goddesses  therefore  dwelt  in  the  sky.  The 
deities  of  the  first  order  were  grouped  as 
follows:  At  the  head  of  the  Chaldaean  Pan- 
theon stood  El,  or  //,  or  Ra  ;  after  whom  was 
named  the  great  city,  Babylon,  or  Bab-El, 
meaning  Gate  of  El.  Next  to  the  chief  deity 
was  a  triad  of  gods — A7ia,  or  Anu,-  Bil,  or  Bel, 
or  Belus  ;  and  Hea ,  or  Hoa — who  corresponded 
to  the  classical  Pluto,  Jupiter  and  Neptune. 
Each  of  these  three  gods  was  accompanied 
by  a  female  principle,  or  wife;  Anal,  or  Aii- 
ata,  being  the  wife  of  Ana;  Mulila,  or  B  elf  is, 
the  wife  of  Bel;  and  Davkina  the  wife  of 
Hoa.  These  were  followed  by  a  second 
triad  of  gods,  consisting  of  Sin,  or  Hurki, 
the  Moon-god;  San,  or  Sa/isi,  the  Sun-god; 
and  I'ltl,  or  /z'a,  or  Bin,  the  Air-god.  Each 
of  this  second  triad  was  also  accompanied 
by  a  feminine  power,  or  wife;  a  goddess 
called  "the  Great  Lady,"  whose  name  is  un- 
certain, being  the  consort  of  Sin,  or  Hurki; 
Gula,  or  Anunit,  the  companion  of  San; 
and  Shala,  or  Tala,  the  wife  of  Vul.  Next 
to  these  great  gods  and  goddesses  at  the 
head  of  the  Pantheon  were  a  group  of  fi\'e 
minor  deities  representing  the  five  planets 
then  known — Nin  or  Ninip  (Saturn),  Mero- 
dach  (Jupiter),  Nergal  (Mars),  Ishtar  (Ve- 
nus), and  Nebo  (Mercury).  All  the  deities 
thus  far  named  constituted  the  principal 
gods  and  goddesses,  and  after  them  were  nu- 
merous divinities  of  the  second  and  third 
order. 

The  chief  Chaldaean  gods  and  goddesses 
were  not  all  descended  from  the  same  parent- 
age, like  the  Egyptian,  or  the  Greek  or 
Roman  deities,  yet  some  relationship  existed 
among  them.  Ana  and  Bel  were  brothers, 
the  sons  of  II.  Vul  was  the  son  of  Ana; 
and  Sin,  or  Hurki,  the  Moon-god,  was  the 
son  of  Bel.  Nebo  and  Merodach  were  sons 
of  Hoa.     Among  the  many  deities  without 


parentage  were  II,  the  chief  god;  Hoa;  San, 
the  Sun-god;  Ishtar,  the  planetary  Venus; 
and  Nergal,  the  representative  of  the  planet 
Mars.  Sometimes  the  relation.ship  is  con- 
fused and  contradi(5lor\-;  Nin,  the  planetary 
Saturn,  being  represented  as  the  son  and 
father  of  Bel,  and  as  the  son  and  husband 
of  Beltis. 

El,  or  //,  is  the  root  of  the  well-known 
Biblical  Eloliim,  and  also  of  the  Arabic  or 
Mohammedan  Allah.  It  is  the  name  which 
Diodorus  represents  z.sEhis;  and  Sanchronia- 
thon,  or  rather  Philo-B5'blius,  under  the  name 
of  Elus,  or  Ilus.  The  meaning  of  the  word 
El,  or  II,  is  simply  "God,"  or  "the  God." 
Ra  had  the  same  meaning  in  Chaldsea,  but  in 
Egypt  it  was  the  special  designation  of  the 
Sun-god.  The  Semitic  name  of  Babylon  was 
Bab- II,  signifying  "The  gate  of  II,  "  or  "the 
gate  of  God."  Ra  was  a  sort  of  fount  or 
origin  of  deity  and  had  few  attributes.  He 
was  not  much  worshiped,  and  does  not  ap- 
pear to  have  had  any  temple  in  early  times. 
He  was  the  common  father  of  Bel  and  Ana. 
Though  Babj'lon,  from  its  name  Babil,  was 
originally  under  Il's  proted;ion,  Bel  was  the 
god  chiefly  worshiped  in  that  city  in  early 
times,  and  Merodach  in  later  times.  El, 
or  II,  was  the  lord  of  heaven.  He  was 
styled  ' '  the  Warrior,  "  "  the  Prince  of  the 
gods,  "  "  the  Eord  of  the  universe. ' '  In 
an  Assyrian  tablet  he  is  styled  ' '  the  Lamp 
of  the  divinities. ' '  In  his  anger  at  the 
wickedness  of  mankind  II  sent  the  great 
Flood  to  destroy  the  human  race,  and  Sisit 
with  the  rest. 

The  residence  of  Ana,  the  first  god  of  the 
first  triad,  was  in  the  concave  dome  of  the 
sky,  to  which  the  other  gods  fled  to  escape 
the  ravages  of  the  Flood,  which  the  wrath 
of  II  had  sent  against  the  wicked  world. 
On  some  tablets  Ana  was  called  ' '  the  Old 
Ana,"  "  the  Original  Chief, "  "the  Father  of 
gods,  "  "the  Lord  of  spirits  and  demons,  " 
"the  King  of  the  lower  world,  "  "the  Lord 
of  darkness,  "  "the  Ruler  of  the  far-off  city," 
etc.  The  old  city  of  Erech,  or  Huruk  (  now 
Warka),  was  the  chief  seat  of  Ana's  wor- 
ship, and  here  was  a  favorite  burial-ground 
of  the  Chaldees,  over  which  Ana  was  be- 


cosj/o(;ojyy  and  RJiUGioN. 


•25 


lieved  to  preside  as  a  tutelary  divinitj'.  He 
was  worshiped  in  the  most  remote  antiquity, 
and  Urukh  alhided  to  him  as  one  of  the 
gods  of  Ur.  King  Shamas-Vul  built  a  tem- 
ple to  Ana  at  Asshur,  (now  Kileh-Sherghat), 
about  1830  B.  C.  The  temple  of  Erech 
bore  the  name  of  Bit- Ana,  or  House  of  Ana; 
and  the  goddess  Beltis,  whose  worship  su- 
perseded that  of  Ana,  in  this  temple,  was 
the  companion  of  Ana  and  was  called  "the 
Lady  of  Bit- Ana." 

Anat,  or  Anata,  the  wife  of  Ana,  was  but 
a  reflecflion  of  her  husband,  and  had  no  dis- 
tinguishing characfleristics,  being  nothing 
but  the  feminine  form  of  the  masculine  Ana. 
All  his  epithets  were  applied  to  her  with 
only  a  distincflion  of  gender,  and  she  had  no 
personality  different  from  his,  and  is  rarely, 
if  ever,  mentioned  in  the  historical  or  geo- 
graphical inscriptions.  One  tablet  repre- 
sents Ana  and  Anata  as  having  nine  chil- 
dren. Two  of  Ana's  sons  were  Vul,  the 
Air-god,  and  Mariu,  the  representative  of 
"Darkness,"  "the  West,"  etc.,  correspond- 
ing to  the  Erebus  of  the  Greeks. 

Bel,  also  called  Enii,  and  known  as  Bc/ns 
by  the  Greeks,  was  the  second  of  the  first 
triad  of  gods.  His  name  Bit.  or  Bel  signifies 
"Lord."  He  was  called  "the  Supreme," 
' '  the  Father  of  the  gods, "  "  the  Procreator, ' ' 
"the  Lord,"  "the  King  of  all  the  spirits," 
' '  the  Lord  of  the  world, "  "  the  Lord  of  all  the 
countries."  When  Nimrod,  "the  mighty 
hunter  before  the  Lord,"  the  legendary 
founder  of  the  Chaldaean  Empire,  after  his 
death  was  deified  as  Bel-Nimrod,  or  Bilu- 
Nipru,  "the  Hunter  Lord,"  his  attributes 
and  titles  were  mingled  with  those  of  Bel. 
Calneh,  or  Nipur,  the  modern  Niifer,  was 
his  sacred  city  and  the  seat  of  his  worship, 
and  here  was  the  great  temple  consecrated 
to  him.  Many  legends  and  traditions 
connec5l  his  name  with  this  ancient  city, 
which  was  also  dedicated  to  his  wife  Beltis. 
Bel-Nimrod  was  called  "Lord  of  Nipra," 
and  his  wife  "  Lady  of  Nipra."  His  temple 
at  Nipur,  called  Kharris- Nipra,  and  famed 
for  its  wealth,  magnificence  and  antiquity, 
was  an  objecft  of  intense  veneration  to  the 
Assyrian  monarchs.    Temples  were  likewise 


dedicated  to  his  w'orship  at  Calah  (now  Nim- 
rud),  and  Dur-Kurri-galzu  (now  Akkerkuf). 
He  is  sometimes  said  to  have  had  four 
"arks"  or  "tabernacles."  Inscriptions  are 
found  on  Assyrian  tablets,  in  which  his 
name  is  invoked  as  ' '  the  Lord  of  the  world. ' ' 
This  facfl  attests  that  his  worship  was  general 
throughout  Chaldaea  and  Assyria.  In  As- 
syria he  was  inferior  only  to.  Asshur,  and  in 
Chaldaea  only  to  El  and  Ana.  Thus  Bel 
and  Bel-Nimrod  were  virtually  the  same 
god.  Beltis  was  his  wife;  and  Nin,  the  As- 
syrian Hercules,  was  their  son,  and  was  fre- 
quently joined  in  their  invocations.  Sin, 
the  Moon-god,  is  also  said  to  be  Bel-Nim- 
rod's  son,  in  some  inscriptions.  His  title 
"Father  of  the  gods"  would  indicate  an  al- 
most infinite  paternity.  Bel-Nimrod  was 
worshiped  during  the  whole  period  of  the 
monarchy.  Urukh  built  him  his  temple  at 
Calneh,  or  Nipur  (now  Niffer),  and  Kurri- 
galzu  erecfted  the  one  at  Akkerkuf.  LIrukh 
often  mentions  him  in  the  inscriptions  in 
connedlion  with  Sin,  or  Hurki,  the  Moon- 
god,  whom  he  calls  Bel-Nimrod's  "eldest 
son." 

Beltis,  or  Mulita — the  Mylitta  of  Herodo- 
tus— as  the  wife  of  Bel-Nimrod,  presented  a 
strong  contrast  to  Anata,  the  wife  of  Ana. 
Beltis  was  not  only  a  female  power  of  Bel- 
Nimrod,  but  was  really  a  distinct  and  import- 
ant deity.  Her  common  title  was  ' '  the  Great 
Goddess."  Her  Chaldsean  name,  Mulita,  or 
Enuta,  signifies  ' '  the  Lady. ' '  Her  Assyrian 
name,  Bilta  or  Bilta-Nipruta,  were  the  femi- 
nine fomis  of  Bil  and  Bilu-Nipm.  Her 
favorite  title  was  "the  Mother  of  the  gods," 
or  "Mother  of  the  great  gods,"  likewise 
' '  Queen-mother  of  the  gods, "  "  the  Queen  of 
the  land,"  "the  Great  Lady,"  "the  Goddess 
of  war  and  battle,"  "the  Goddess  of  birth." 
Though  usually  classed  as  the  wife  of  Bel- 
Nimrod  and  the  mother  of  his  son  Nin,  .she 
is  sometimes  called  "the  wife  of  Nin,"  and 
in  one  place  ' '  the  wife  of  Asshur. ' '  She  is 
likewise  styled  ' '  the  lady  of  Bit- Ana, "  "  the 
lady  of  Nipur."  Her  worship  was  general, 
and  her  temples  were  numerous.  At  Erech 
(now  Warka)  she  was  worshiped  on  the 
same   platform   with   Ana.     At  Cahieh,  or 


126 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— CHALD.^EA. 


Nipur  Cnow  Niffer),  she  shared  fully  in  her 
husband's  honors.  She  had  a  shrine  at  Ur 
(now  Mugheir),  another  at  Rubesi,  and  an- 
other outside  the  walls  of  Babylon.  Some 
of  these  temples  were  ^•ery  ancient,  those  at 
Erech  and  Nipur  being  built  by  Urukh, 
while  that  at  Ur  was  either  built  or  repaired 
by  Ismi-Dagon.  One  record  makes  Beltis 
the  daughter  of  Ana,  and  as  ' '  Queen  of 
Nipur"  she  was  "the  wife  of  Nin."  Beltis 
was  "the  Goddess  of  fertility  and  birth," 
' '  the  Lady  of  offspring. ' '  The  worship  of 
Beltis  was  general  throughout  Chaldsea,  and 
the  magnificence  of  her  temples  prove  the 
adoration  of  the  Chaldseans  and  the  Later 
Babjdonians  for  her  as  the  source  of  beaut}^ 
and  the  dispenser  of  love. 

Hea,  or  Hoa,  the  third  of  the  first  triad 
of  deities,  was  the  Sea-god,  who,  Berosus 
says,  taught  language  and  letters,  art  and 
science,  and  agriculture  to  the  primitive 
Chaldees.  Though  he  is  represented  as  a 
fish-monster,  Berosus  calls  him  ' '  the  Great 
Giver  of  good  gifts  to  man,"  and  he  also 
bears  the  title  of  ' '  Lord  of  the  abyss, ' '  and 
' '  Lord  of  the  great  deep. ' '  He  was  adored 
as  the  dispenser  of  life  and  knowledge,  and 
as  such  his  emblem  was  the  serpent,  which 
Eastern  races  generally  emploj^ed  as  the 
symbol  of  more  than  human  wisdom.  Raw- 
linson  considers  the  legend  of  Hea  in  the 
form  of  a  serpent  teaching  men  wisdom,  as 
bearing  some  relation  to  the  story  of  the 
.serpent  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  enticing 
Adam  and  Eve  to  eat  the  forbidden  fruit  of 
the  tree  of  knowledge  by  promising  them 
extended  wisdom.  The  connecftion  of  Hoa 
with  the  introdu(ftion  of  letters  is  symbol- 
ized in  the  arrow-head  in  the  cuneiform  in- 
scriptions. The  Assyrian  kings  built  him 
temples  at  Asshur  and  Calah.  Davkina 
was  the  wife  of  Hoa,  and  her  name  signifies 
"the  Chief  Lady."  Like  Anata,  Davkina 
had  no  distineflive  titles  or  important  position 
in  the  Pantheon,  but  took  her  husband's 
epithets  with  a  simple  distincflion  of  gender. 
Merodach  and  Nebo  were  the  sons  of  Hoa 
and  Davkina. 

Sin,    or   Hurki,  the   Moon-god,  was   the 
first   deity  of  the   second    triad.      He   was 


called  "the  Powerful,"  "the  Lord  of  the 
spirits,"  "He  who  dwells  in  the  great 
heavens, "  "  the  Chief  of  the  gods  of  heaven 
and  earth,"  "the  King  of  the  gods,"  "the 
Bright, "  "  the  Shining, "  "  the  Lord  of  the 
month."  As  the  patron  and  protedtor  of 
buildings  and  architedlure,  he  was  styled 
' '  the  Supporting  Architecfl, "  "  the  Strength- 
ener  of  fortifications, "  "  the  Lord  of  build- 
ing."  Bricks  were  under  his  protecflion, 
and  the  sign  of  the  month  under  his  special 
care  was  the  one  by  which  they  were  desig- 
nated. His  common  symbol  was  the  crescent, 
or  new  moon.  The  monuments  represent 
him  in  the  form  of  an  aged  bearded  figure 
with  illustrations  of  the  different  phases  of 
the  crescent  near  his  head.  The  signet- 
cylinder  of  King  Urukh,  now  in  the  British 
Museum,  bears  this  representation  of  the 
Moon-god.  In  this  figure  he  is  represented 
as  offering  one  hand  in  salutation  in  the 
presence  of  three  worshipers  standing  before 
him.  The  Moon-god  was  the  special  objedl 
of  kingly  worship.  Ur,  or  Hur,  which  de- 
rived its  name  from  Hurki,  was  his  sacred 
city,  and  here  was  the  great  temple  built  for 
his  worship  by  King  Urukh  and  his  famous 
son  and  successor,  Ilgi.  This  deity  was  like- 
wise worshiped  by  the  princes  of  Borsippa 
and  Babylon,  and  one  dynasty  of  Chaldsean 
monarchs  bore  the  title  of  the  Sin  kings. 
The  Moon-god  was  adored  by  the  Chal- 
daeans  and  Babylonians  to  the  latest  days  of 
antiquit}',  through  the  period  of  Assyrian 
supremacy  to  the  times  of  Nebuchadnezzar 
and  Nabonadius,  the  last  of  whom  restored 
his  shrine  at  Ur  and  bestowed  on  him  high- 
sounding  titles,  such  as  "the  Chief  of  the 
gods  of  heaven  and  earth,  the  King  of  the 
gods,  God  of  gods,  H6  who  dwells  in  the 
great  heavens."  In  some  inscriptions  the 
Moon-god  is  called  the  eldest  son  of  Bel- 
Nimrod.  His  wife,  the  Moon-goddess, 
called  "the  Great  Lady,"  was  often  asso- 
ciated with  him  in  the  lists.  Hurki  and  his 
wife  were  the  tutelary  deities  of  Ur,  or  Hur, 
and  a  part  of  the  temple  was  dedicated  to 
his  wife.  Her  "ark"  or  "tabernacle," 
which  was  separate  from  that  of  her  hus- 
band, was  also  deposited  in  this  sancftuarj-. 


cosMoco.yy  and  rki.icion. 


[27 


It  was  called  "the  lesser  light,"  while  his 
ark  was  styled  "the  light." 

Sail,  or  Sansi,  the  Sun-god — whose  Semi- 
tic names  were  Sanias,  Shanias,  and  Shem- 
esh — was  the  second  deitj-  of  the  second 
triad.  He  was  regarded  as  the  lord  of  the 
daj-light,  and  was  represented  as  lighting 
the  universe.  His  emblem  was  the  circle. 
He  was  called  "the  Lord  of  fire,"  "the 
Light  of  the  gods, "  "  the  Ruler  of  the  day, ' ' 
"  He  who  illumines  the  expanse  of  heaven 
and  earth,"  "the  Regent  of  all  things," 
'  'the  Establisher  of  heaven  and  earth . ' '  The 
Sun-god  inspired  warlike  thoughts  in  the 
minds  of  kings,  and  diredled  and  favored 
their  militarj-  expeditions.  He  caused  the 
Chaldsean  monarchs  to  assemble  their  char- 
iots and  warriors,  and  went  forth  with  their 
armies  and  defeated  their  foes  in  battle.  He 
extended  their  dominions,  and  brought 
them  back  to  their  own  land  as  conquerors. 
He  chased  their  enemies  before  them  and 
crushed  all  opposition.  He  aided  them  to 
swaj'  the  kingly  sceptre  and  to  enforce  their 
authorit}^  over  their  subjects.  He  was  thus 
called  '  ■  the  Supreme  Ruler  who  casts  a  fa- 
vorable eye  on  expeditions,"  "the  Van- 
quisher of  the  king's  enemies,"  "the 
Breaker-up  of  opposition."  As  the  sun  dif- 
fused light  and  wannth  throughout  the 
realm  of  nature,  so  San  lightened  men's 
minds  and  hearts  with  wisdom  and  inspira- 
tion. The  chief  seats  of  the  Sun-god's  wor- 
ship were  at  Larsa  and  Sippara.  At  Larsa 
was  the  great  temple  to  San,  called  Bit- 
Parra,  built  by  Urukh,  and  restored  at  times 
to  as  late  a  period  as  the  age  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar. At  Sippara  the  worship  of  this 
deity  took  precedence  of  all  others,  so  that 
the  Greeks  called  this  place  Heliopolis,  or 
City  of  the  Sun.  The  idolatry  of  the  "Fire- 
king,"  Adrammelech,  which  the  Second 
Book  of  Kings  mentions  as  being  set  up  in 
Samaria,  was  the  worship  of  the  Chaldaean 
Sun-god.  At  Sippara,  called  Tsipar  sha 
Shamas,  "Sippara  of  the  Sun,"  in  the  in- 
scriptions, was  the  large  temple  to  the  Sun- 
god  which  was  repaired  and  adorned  bj- 
many  of  the  ancient  Chaldaean  kings,  as 
well  as  bj-  Nebuchadnezzar  and  Nabouadius. 


Most  of  the  signet-cylinders  of  the  Chal- 
daean monarchs  have  the  emblem  of  the  sun 
among  their  symbols  of  divinitj-. 

Ai,  Gula,  or  Anunit,  the  wife  of  San,  as 
the  female  power  of  the  sun,  was  usually  as- 
sociated with  the  Sun-god  in  temples  and 
invocations.  Gula  signifies  "great.  "  As 
a  deitj'  separate  from  her  husband,  she  pre- 
sided over  life  and  birth.  She  was  wor- 
shiped with  her  husband  both  at  Larsa  and 
Sippara,  and  her  name  appears  on  the  in- 
scriptions at  both  places.  She  is  believed 
to  have  been  the  Anammelech  whom  the 
Sephar\'ites  adored  in  combination  with  Ad- 
rammelech, the  "Fire-king."  In  later 
times  she  had  temples  independent  of  her 
husband  at  Bab}-lon  and  Borsippa,  as  well 
as  at  Calah  and  Asshur.  Her  emblem  was 
the  eight-rayed  disk  or  orb,  which  is  often 
associated  with  the  four-rayed  orb  in  the 
Babylonian  representations,  or  sometimes  an 
eight-raj-ed  star,  and  frequently  a  star  of 
only  six  rays. 

Vul,  or  Iva,  the  Air-god — also  variously 
translated  as  Bin,  Yem,  Ao  or  Hu — was  the 
third  god  of  the  second  triad.  Like  the 
Zeus  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Jupiter  of  the 
Romans,  Vul  wielded  the  thunderbolt  and 
directed  the  storm  and  the  tempest.  The 
Chaldasan  account  of  the  great  Flood  repre- 
sents Vul  as  thundering  in  heaven.  He 
was  considered  the  destroj-er  of  crops,  and 
consequently  the  author  of  famine,  scarcity 
and  pestilence.  The  ' '  flaming  sword ' ' 
which  he  is  said  to  have  held  in  his  hand  is 
represented  as  his  symbol  on  the  tablets  and 
cylinders,  where  it  is  figured  as  a  thunder- 
bolt. He  was  regarded  as  "the  Prince  of 
the  power  of  the  air."  His  usual  titles 
were  "the  Minister  of  heaven  and  earth." 
' '  the  Lord  of  the  air, "  "  He  who  makes  the 
tempest  to  rage."  He  was  the  great  de- 
stroyer in  the  realm  of  nature,  but  as  the 
dispenser  of  rain  he  was  adored  as  the  source 
of  the  fertility  of  the  nourishing  earth.  He 
was  regarded  as  the  prote(5lor  of  rivers, 
canals  and  aqueducts.  Thus  he  was  st\led 
' '  the  Careful  and  Beneficent  Chief,  "  "  the 
Giver  of  abundance, "  "  the  Lord  of  canals, ' ' 
and  ' '  the  Establisher  of  works  of  irrigation. ' ' 


■128 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  } '.—  CHALD^A. 


The  name  of  King  Shamus-Vul,  son  and 
successor  of  Ismi-Dagon,  indicates  that  Vul 
must  have  been  worshiped  in  early  times,  as 
that  king  set  up  his  worship  at  Asshur, 
(now  Kileh-Sherghat),  in  Assj-ria,  where  a 
temple  was  built  to  him  and  Ana  conjointly. 
All  through  the  period  of  Assyrian  ascend- 
ency and  to  the  end  of  the  Later  Babylonian 
Empire  the  Air-god  was  highly  venerated. 
Shala,  or  Tala,  was  the  wife  of  Vul,  or  Iva 
and  her  usual  title  is  sarrat  or  sharrat,  mean- 
ing "queen,  "  the  feminine  of  the  word  sa?', 
which  signifies  "king,''  "chief,"  or  "sov- 
ereign. " 

First  among  the  deities  who  represented 
the  five  planets  then  known,  was  Nin,  or 
Ninip,  also  called  Bar,  or  Adar,  who  was  the 
representative  of  Saturn.  Bar,  the  Semitic 
name,  and  Nin,  the  Hamitic  designation, 
signify  "Lord"  or  "Master."  Ninip  signi- 
fies "Nin  by  name,"  or  "He  whose  name  is 
Nin."  Barshen  signifies  "Bar  by  name," 
or  "He  whose  name  is  Bar."  In  his  char- 
acfter  and  attributes  Nin  most  nearly  corres- 
ponded to  the  Hercules  of  the  Greeks,  as  he 
was  adored  as  the  god  of  strength  and 
heroism,  according  to  the  testimony  of  the 
inscriptions.  He  boldly  faced  the  foe  in 
battle,  and  his  name  was  invoked  to  encour- 
age the  warrior  in  the  deadly  confiicft.  He 
was  styled  "the  Lord  of  the  brave,"  "the 
Champion,"  "the  Warrior  who  subdues 
foes, "  "  He  who  strengthens  the  hearts  of  his 
followers,"  "the  Destroyer  of  enemies," 
' '  the  Reducer  of  the  disobedient, "  "  the  Ex- 
terminator of  rebels, "  "  He  whose  sword  is 
good."  In  characfler  he  thus  very  much  re- 
sembled Bel-Nimrod  and  Nergal,  and  also  the 
Greek  Hera,  the  Roman  Mars,  and  the  Scan- 
dinavian Odin.  The  in.scriptions  call  Nin, 
and  not  Hoa,  the  ' '  Fish-god. ' '  His  emblem 
was  generally  the  fish;  and  on  some  reliefs  he 
is  represented  as  part  man  and  part  fish,  and 
beneath  are  such  titles  as  "the  God  of  the 
sea,"  "He  who  dwells  in  the  deep,"  "the 
Opener  of  aquedudls. ' '  On  other  tablets  he 
is  styled  "the  Powerful  Chief,"  "the 
Supreme,"  "the  First  of  the  gods,"  "the 
Favorite  of  the  gods,"  "the  Chief  of  the 
.spirits,"  and  like  titles.     In  his  planetary 


characfter,  he  is  called  "the  Lightof  heaven," 
"He  who,  like  the  sun,  the  light  of  the  gods, 
irradiates  the  nations."  In  the  sculptured 
courts  of  the  Assyrian  palaces,  Nin  is  rep- 
resented as  a  winged  man-bull,  the  impenso- 
nation  of  strength  and  power.  He  guards 
the  palaces  of  the  Assyrian  kings,  who  con- 
.sider  him  their  tutelary  deity,  and  whose 
capital  citj',  Nineveh,  is  named  in  his  honor. 
Nin  does  not  rank  with  the  most  ancient  of 
the  Chaldsean  gods  on  the  monuments;  but 
as  the  Fish-god,  whom  Berosus  represented 
as  coming  out  of  the  sea  to  teach  the  Chal- 
dasans  letters  and  science,  he  must  have 
been  an  object  of  veneration  from  primeval 
times.  His  oldest  temples  were  the  two  at 
Calah  (now  Ninirud),  and  his  temple  at 
Nineveh  was  widely  famed  for  its  splendor, 
and  is  noticed  in  the  ' '  Annals  ' '  of  Tacitus. 
His  worship  was  very  general  throughout 
Chaldsea  and  As.syria,  as  is  shown  by  the 
frequency  with  which  his  emblems  are  found 
among  the  inscriptions.  As  we  have  said, 
Nin  was  the  .son  of  Bel-Nimrod,  and  the  in- 
scriptions represent  him  as  the  husband  and 
son  of  Beltis.  One  tablet  calls  Nin  the 
father,  instead  of  the  son,  of  Bel-Nimrod. 
This  contradi(flion  is  the  result  of  the  double 
characfler  of  Nin,  who,  as  Saturn,  was  the 
father,  but  as  Hercules,  the  son  of  Jupiter. 
Merodach,  or  Bel-Merodach,  represented 
the  planet  of  Jupiter,  and  was  called  ' '  the 
Old  Man  of  the  gods,"  "the  King  of  the 
earth"  "the  Most  Ancient,"  "Senior  of  the 
gods,"  "the  Judge,"  and  the  like.  He  was 
regarded  as  the  god  of  judgment,  justice  and 
right.  He  was  believed  to  preside  wherever 
justice  was  dispensed  by  kings  sitting  in 
the  gates,  the  early  seats  of  justice.  He  was 
considered  the  most  spiritual  of  the  Chal- 
dsean  deities,  and  in  the  Babylonian  in.scrip- 
tions he  is  classed  as  superior  to  all  celestial 
and  terrestrial  divinities,  under  the  title  of 
Belrabu.  The  Tel  Sifr  tablets  indicate 
that  Merodach  must  have  been  worshiped 
in  the  early  Chaldsean  kingdom.  He  is  be- 
lieved to  have  been  the  tutelary  deity  of 
Babylon  from  the  most  remote  antiquity, 
and  as  the  city  grew  into  importance  his 
worship  became  more  and  more  prominent. 


COSA/OaON]'  AND    Rl'.l.ICIO.y. 


129 


The  Assyrian  kings  alvvaj's  associated  Baby- 
lon with  Merodach,  and  in  the  Later  Baby- 
lonian Knipire  his  worship  took  precedence 
of  that  of  the  other  gods.  Herodotns  mi- 
nutely described  his  temple,  and  the  prophet 
Uanicl  bore  testimony  to  the  devotion  with 
which  he  was  worshiped  by  the  Babylonians. 
Nebuchadnezzar  called  him  "the  King  of 
the  heavens  and  the  earth,"  "the  Great 
Lord, "  "  the  Senior  of  the  gods, "  "  the  Most 
Ancient,"  "  the  Supporter  of  .sovereignty," 
"the  Layer  up  of  treasures,"  and  the  like; 
and  attributed  to  this  god  all  his  glorj-  and 
success.  His  emblem  is  not  definitely 
known;  but  Diodorus  states  that  the  great 
statue  of  Merodach  at  Babylon  was  a  figure 
"standing  and  walking,"  and  such  a  form 
frequently  appears  upon  the  Babj-lonian 
cylinders.  Merodach's  wife,  Zir-Banit,  had 
a  temple  at  Babylon,  attached  to  her  hus- 
band's, and  is  believed  to  have  been  the 
goddess  whose  worship  was  introduced  into 
Samaria  \>y  the  Babj-lonian  colonists,  and 
who  is  called  Succoth-benoth  in  the  Old 
Testament. 

Nergal,  the  War-god,  was  the  representa- 
tive of  the  planet  Mars,  and  his  name,  which 
is  Hamitic,  signifies  "the  Great  Man"  or 
' '  the  Great  Hero. ' '  In  the  Assyrian  ac- 
count of  the  Deluge,  Nergal  is  alluded  to 
as  the  destroyer;  but  he  was  chiefly  cele- 
brated for  his  power  over  the  chase  and 
the  battle-field,  thus  partaking  of  the  charac- 
ter and  attributes  of  Bel-Nimrod,  with  which 
deity  he  is  compared  in  the  adoration 
bestowed  upon  him  as  the  ancestor  of 
the  Assyrian  monarchs.  He  was  called 
"the  King  of  battles,"  "the  Champion  of 
the  gods,"  " the  Storm  ruler, "  "the  Strong 
Begetter, ' '  '  'the  Tutelary  God  of  Babylonia, ' ' 
and  "the  God  of  the  cha.se."  He  is  usually 
coupled  with  Nin,  who  also  presides  over 
battles  and  hunting.  The  chief  seats  of 
Nergal' s  worship  were  the  ancient  cities  of 
Cutha  and  Tarbissa.  Cutha  was  the  sacred 
city  where  he  was  said  to  "live,"  and  in 
which  was  his  famous  shrine.  The  "men 
of  Cuth,"  when  transported  as  colonists  to 
Samaria  by  the  Assyrians,  naturally  "made 
Nergal  their  god, ' '  introducing  his  worship 


into  the  land  of  their  forced  adoption.  Ner- 
gal's  emblem  was  the  famous  winged  man- 
lion,  the  impersonation  of  human  intelli- 
gence and  phy.sical  .strength,  as  .seen  at  the 
entrances  of  the  great  palaces  of  vSusa  and 
Nineveh.  Of  Nergal's  wife,  called  Lax, 
only  her  name  is  known. 

Ishtar,  or  Nana,  was  the  representative 
of  the  planetary  Venus,  and  in  characfler 
and  attributes  she  mainly  corresponded  with 
the  classical  goddess  whose  name  the  planet 
bears.  Ishtar  was  her  Assyrian  name,  and 
Nana  was  her  Bab^'lonian  appellation.  The 
Phoenicians  called  her  Astarte,  and  the  He- 
brews Astoreth.  Ishtar  is  styled  in  the  in- 
.scriptions,  "the  Goddess  who  rejoices  man- 
kind," and  her  most  common  epithet  is 
A.surah,  "the  Fortunate,"  or  "the  Happy." 
She  is  also  called  ' '  the  Mistress  of  heaven 
and  earth,"  "the  Great  Goddess,"  "the 
Queen  of  all  the  gods; "  and  also  "the  God- 
dess of  war  and  battle, "  "  the  Queen  of  vic- 
tor}-," "She  who  arranges  battles,"  and 
' '  She  who  defends  from  attacks. ' '  In  the 
inscriptions  of  one  monarch  she  is  repre- 
sented as  "the  Goddess  of  the  chase."  Her 
worship  was  general,  and  her  shrines  were 
numerous.  She  is  often  styled  ' '  the  Queen 
of  Babylon,"  and  must  have  had  a  temple 
in  that  city.  She  likewise  had  temples  at 
Asshur,  Arbela  and  Nineveh.  Her  symbol, 
as  represented  on  the  cylinders,  is  the  naked 
female  form. 

Ishtar,  in  her  journey  to  the  under-world, 
symbolized  the  disappearance  in  winter  of 
the  Life  in  nature  as  ushered  in  at  spring. 
Ishtar  is  represented  as  going  down  to  the 
House  of  Lskalla.  Mr.  Fox  Talbot,  the  Eng- 
lish Orientalist,  gives  the  following  transla- 
tion of  the  descent  of  Ishtar  to  Hades,  or 
the  House  of  lskalla: 

' '  To  the  land  of  Hades,  the  land  of  her 
desire,  Ishtar,  daughter  of  the  Moon-god 
Sin,  turned  her  mind.  The  daughter  of 
Sin  fixed  her  mind  to  go  to  the  House  where 
all  meet,  the  dwelling  of  the  god  lskalla,  to 
the  house  which  men  enter,  but  cannot  de- 
part from — the  road  which  men  travel,  but 
never  retrace — the  abode  of  darkness  and  of 
famine,    where    earth   is   their    food,    their 


I30 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.  — CHALDyEA. 


nourishment  clay — where  Hght  is  not  seen, 
but  in  darkness  they  dwell — where  ghosts, 
like  birds,  flutter  their  wings,  and  on  the 
door  and  the  door-posts  the  dust  lies  undis- 
turbed. 

"When  Ishtar  arrived  at  the  gate  of 
Hades,  to  the  keeper  of  the  gate  a  word  she 
spake:  'O  keeper  of  the  entrance,  open  thy 
gate!  Open  thy  gate,  I  say  again,  that  I 
may  enter  in!  If  thou  openest  not  thj-gate, 
if  I  do  not  enter  in,  I  will  assault  the  door, 
the  gate  I  will  break  down,  I  will  attack  the 
entrance,  I  will  split  open  the  portals.  I 
will  raise  the  dead,  to  be  the  devourers  of 
the  living!  Upon  the  living  the  dead  shall 
prey.'  Then  the  porter  opened  his  mouth 
and  spake,  and  thus  he  said  to  great  Ishtar: 
'Stay,  lady,  do  not  shake  down  the  door;  I 
will  go  and  inform  Queen  Nin-ki-gal.'  So 
the  porter  went  in  and  to  Nin-ki-gal  said: 
'These  curses  thy  .sister  Ishtar  utters;  yea, 
she  blasphemes  thee  with  fearful  curses.' 
And  Nin-ki-gal,  hearing  the  words,  grew 
pale,  like  a  flower  when  cut  from  the  step; 
like  the  stalk  of  a  reed,  she  shook.  And 
she  said,  '  I  will  cure  her  rage — I  will 
speedily  cure  her  fury.  Her  curses  I  will 
repa}-.  Light  up  consuming  flames!  Light 
up  a  blaze  of  straw!  Be  her  doom  with  the 
husbands  who  left  their  wives;  be  her  doom 
with  the  wives  who  forsook  their  lords;  be 
her  doom  with  the  youths  of  dishonored 
lives.  Go,  porter,  and  open  the  gate  for 
her;  but  strip  her,  as  some  have  been 
stripped  ere  now.'  The  porter  went  and 
opened  the  gate.  '  Lady  of  Tiggaba,  enter,' 
he  .said:  'Enter.  It  is  pennitted.  The 
Queen  of  Hades  to  meet  thee  comes.'  So 
the  first  gate  let  her  in,  but  she  was  stopped, 
and  there  the  great  crown  was  taken  from 
her  head.  '  Keeper,  do  not  take  off"  from 
me  the  crown  that  is  on  my  head.'  '  Excu.se 
it,  lady,  the  Queen  of  the  Land  insi.sts  upon 
its  removal.'  The  next  gate  let  her  in,  but 
she  was  stopped,  and  there  the  ear-rings 
were  taken  from  her  ears.  '  Keeper,  do  not 
take  off"  from  me  the  ear-rings  from  my  ears. ' 
'  Excu.se  it,  lady,  the  Queen  of  the  Land  in- 
.si.sts  upon  their  removal.'  The  third  gate 
let  her  in,  but  she  was  stopped,  and  there 


the  precious  stones  were  taken  from  her 
head.  '  Keeper,  do  not  take  off  from  me 
the  gems  that  adorn  my  head. '  '  Excuse  it, 
lady,  the  Queen  of  the  Land  insists  upon 
their  removal.'  The  fourth  gate  let  her  in, 
but  .she  was  stopped,  and  there  the  small 
jewels  were  taken  from  her  brow.  '  Keeper, 
do  not  take  off"  from  me  the  small  jewels 
that  deck  my  brow.'  'Excuse  it,  lady,  the 
Queen  of  the  Land  insists  upon  their  re- 
moval.' The  fifth  gate  let  her  in,  but  she 
was  stopped,  and  there  the  girdle  was  taken 
from  her  waist.  '  Keeper,  do  not  take  off 
from  me  the  girdle  that  girds  my  waist.' 
'Excuse  it,  lady,  the  Queen  of  the  Land 
t  insists  upon  its  removal.'  The  sixth  gate 
let  her  in,  but  she  was  stopped,  and  there 
the  gold  rings  were  taken  from  her  hands 
and  feet.  '  Keeper,  do  not  take  off"  from  me 
the  gold  rings  of  my  hands  and  feet. '  '  Ex- 
cu.se  it,  lady,  the  Queen  of  the  Land  insists 
upon  their  removal.'  The  seventh  gate  let 
her  in,  but  she  was  stopped,  and  there  the 
last  garment  was  taken  from  her  body. 
'Keeper,' do  not  take  off,  I  pra}',  the  last 
garment  from  my  body.'  'Excuse  it,  lady, 
the  Queen  of  the  Land  insists  upon  its  re- 
moval.' 

' '  After  that  Mother  Ishtar  had  descended 
into  Hades,  Nin-ki-gal  saw  and  derided  her 
to  her  face.  Then  Ishtar  lost  her  reason, 
and  heaped  curses  upon  the  other.  Nin-ki- 
gal  hereupon  opened  her  mouth,  and  spake: 
'  Go,  Namtar,  *  *  *  and  bring  her  out  for 
punishment,  =*=  *  *  afflict  her  with  disease 
of  the  ej'e,  the  side,  the  feet,  the  heart,  the 
head'  (some  lines  effaced).    *    *    * 

' '  The  Divine  messenger  of  the  gods  lac- 
erated his  face  before  them.  The  assembly 
of  the  gods  was  full.  *  *  *  The  Sun  came, 
along  with  the  Moon,  his  father,  and  weep- 
ing he  spake  thus  unto  Hea,  the  king: 
'Ishtar  has  de.scended  into  the  earth,  and 
has  not  risen  again;  and  ever  since  the  time 
that  Mother  Ishtar  descended  into  hell,    * 

*  *  *  tijg  master  has  ceased  from  com- 
manding; the  slave  has  ceased  from  obey- 
ing.' Then  the  god  Hea  in  the  depth  of 
his  mind  formed  a  design;  he  modeled,  for 
her   escape,   the   figure  of  a  man  of  clay. 


COSMOCrONV  AND    RliLKilON. 


Go  to  save  her,  Plmiitom,  present  thj'self 
at  the  portal  of  Hades;  the  seven  gates  of 
Hades  will  all  open  before  thee;  Nin-ki- 
gal  will  see  thee,  and  take  pleasure  because 
of  thee.  When  her  mind  has  grown  calm, 
and  her  anger  has  worn  itself  away,  awe 
her  with  the  names  of  the  great  gods! 
Then  prepare  thy  frauds!  Fix  on  deceitful 
tricks  thy  mind!  Use  the  chiefest  of  thy 
tricks!  Bring  forth  fish  out  of  an  empty 
vessel!  That  will  astonish  Nin-ki-gal,  and 
to  Ishtar  she  will  restore  her  clothing.  The 
reward — a  great  reward — for  these  things 
shall  not  fail.  Go,  Phantom,  save  her,  and 
the  great  assembly  of  the  people  shall 
crown  thee!  Meats,  the  best  in  the  citj% 
.shall  be  thy  food!  Wine,  the  most  delicious 
in  the  city,  .shall  be  thy  drink!  A  royal 
palace  shall  be  thy  dwelling,  a  throne  of 
state  shall  be  thy  seat!  Magician  and  con- 
juror shall  kiss  the  hem  of  thy  garment!' 
"Nin-ki-gal  opened  her  mouth  and  spake; 
to  her  messenger,  Namtar,  commands  she 
gave:  '  Go,  Namtar,  the  Temple  of  Justice 
adorn!  Deck  the  images!  Deck  the  altars! 
Bring  out  Anunnak,  and  let  him  take  his 
seat  on  a  throne  of  gold!  Pour  out  for  Ishtar 
the  water  of  life;  from  my  realms  let  her 
depart.'  Namtar  obeyed;  he  adorned  the 
Temple;  decked  the  images,  decked  the  al- 
tars; brought  out  Anunnak,  and  let  him 
take  his  seat  on  a  throne  of  gold;  poured 
out  for  Ishtar  the  water  of  life,  and  suffered 
her  to  depart.  Then  the  first  gate  let  her 
out,  and  gave  her  back  the  garment  of  her 
form.  The  next  gate  let  her  out,  and  gave 
her  back  the  jewels  for  her  hands  and  feet. 
The  third  gate  let  her  out,  and  gave  her 
back  the  girdle  for  her  waist.  The  fourth 
gate  let  her  out,  and  gave  her  back  the 
small  gems  she  had  worn  upon  her  brow. 
The  fifth  gate  let  her  out,  aud  gave  her  back 
the  precious  stones  that  had  been  upon  her 
head.  The  sixth  gate  let  her  out,  and  gave 
her  back  the  ear-rings  that  were  taken  from 
her  ears.  And  the  seventh  gate  let  her  out, 
and  gave  her  back  the  crown  she  had  car- 
ried on  her  head. ' ' 

Ishtar's  return  to  earth   .symbolized    the 
reappearance  of  spring. 


The  god  Nebo  represented  the  planet 
Mercury,  and  was  the  last  of  the  five  plane- 
tary deities.  Nebo  was  the  god  of  wisdom 
and  intelligence,  the  patron  and  protecflor 
of  knowledge  and  learning,  and  the  teacher 
of  mankind.  His  attributes  were  the  .same 
as  those  of  the  Greek  Hermes.  He  was 
styled  ' '  the  God  who  possesses  intelligence, " 
' '  He  who  hears  from  afar,  "  "  He  who 
teaches, "  or  "  He  who  teaches  and  instrucfls. ' ' 
He  thus  somewhat  resembled  Hoa,  whose 
son  he  is  called  in  .some  in.scriptions.  Like 
Hoa,  he  had  for  his  emblem  the  simple 
wedge  or  arrow-head,  the  primarj'  element 
in  the  cuneiform  writing,  to  signify  his  as- 
sociation with  that  god  in  the  patronage  of 
letters.  Nebo's  other  titles  were  "the  Lord 
of  lords,  who  has  no  equal  in  power,  "  "the 
Supreme  Chief, "  "the  Sustainer, "  "the  Sup- 
porter, "  "  the  Ever- ready,  "  "the  Guardian 
over  the  heavens  and  the  earth,"  "the  Lord 
of  the  constellations,"  "the  Holder  of  the 
sceptre  of  power,"  "He  who  grants  to  kings 
the  sceptre  of  royalty  for  the  government 
of  their  people."  Sometimes  he  is  cla.ssed 
with  the  inferior  deities.  His  worship  was 
more  general  in  Chaldaea  than  in  Assyria. 
In  the  later  ages  Borsippa  was  the  chief  seat 
of  Nebo's  worship,  and  there  the  great  tem- 
ple, called  Birs-i-Nimrud,  was  consecrated  to 
him.  The  ruins  of  one  of  his  shrines  are 
found  on  the  site  of  the  ancient  Assyrian 
city  of  Calah,  (now  Nimrud),  whence  im- 
posing statues  of  this  god  have  been  trans- 
ferred to  the  British  Museum.  He  was  a 
favorite  deity  of  the  later  Babylonian  kings, 
many  of  whom  were  named  after  him,  such 
as  Nabonassar,  Nabopolassar,  Nebuchad- 
nezzar and  Nobanadius.  Nebo's  wife  was 
Varamit,  or  Urmit,  a  name  signifying  "ex- 
alted," who  was  only  a  companion  of  her 
husband  and  had  no  special  attributes.  Be- 
sides the  deities  described,  the  Chaldaean 
Pantheon  embraced  a  multitude  of  inferior 
divinities,  of  whom  but  verj-  little  is  known. 
It  is  thus  seen  that  the  Chaldaean  religion 
was,  from  the  mo.st  remote  antiquity,  an 
astronomical  worship.  The  twelve  constel- 
lations of  the  Zodiac  were  the  sun's  "twelve 
hou.ses,"  and  his  proper  abode  was  in  the 


132 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y.—CHALDy^A. 


constellation  of  Leo.  The  planets  likewise 
traversed  twelve  stages  in  their  course,  and 
each  sign  or  ' '  house  ' '  passed  lay  any  one  of 
these  celestial  bodies  was  regarded  as  a  seat 
of  divine  power,  w'hile  the  planets  them- 
selves were  considered  gods.  Thirty  of  the 
fixed  stars  were  associated  with  the  planets 
as  "counseling  gods;"  and  twelve  others  in 
the  northern  heavens,  and  twelve  in  the 
southern  firmament,  were  designated  ' '  the 
judges."  The  twelve  "judges"  above  the 
horizon  controlled  the  destines  of  the  living, 
while  the  twelve  below  were  masters  of  the 
fate  of  the  dead.  Each  of  the  twelve 
months  of  the  year  was  assigned  to  one  of 
the  twelve  great  gods,  beginning  with  Ana. 
The  seven  days  of  the  week  were  controlled 
by  the  seven  great  heavenly  bodies — the  sun, 
the  moon,  and  the  five  planets  then  known. 
The  hours  were  assigned  to  certain  stars. 

Thus  in  the  earliest  twilight  of  Oriental 
history,  more  than  four  thousand  years  ago, 
the  Wise  Men  of  ancient  Chaldsea — priests, 
bards,  sages  and  prophets — by  their  observa- 
tions of  the  heavens  and  their  explorations 
of  the  paths  of  the  celestial  luminaries,  be- 
came the  great  pioneers  of  astronomical 
science,   and    the    founders    of    that    semi- 


mythical  and  semi-scientific  learning  which 
became  diffused  throughout  the  whole  West 
of  Asia.  The  priests  performed  the  task  of 
watching  the  courses,  positions  and  phases 
of  the  celestial  orbs  and  luminaries,  and 
estimating  and  calculating  the  influence  of 
this  ever-varjing  aspedl  upon  the  destinies 
of  men  and  nations.  The  seer  and  the 
prophet  endeavored  to  show  how  the  good 
and  evil  fortune  of  the  state  was  blended 
with  conjuncftions  and  oppositions  in  the 
starry  firmament.  Thus  astrology  became 
mingled  with  astronomy.  In  the  Book  of 
Daniel  the  Chaldaeans  are  mentioned  as  in- 
terpreters of  stars  and  signs.  The  following 
inscription  has  been  deciphered  from  a  tab- 
let found  at  Nineveh:  "  If  Jupiter  is  seen  in 
the  month  of  Tammuz,  there  will  be  corpses. 
If  Venus  comes  opposite  the  star  of  the  fish, 
there  will  be  devastation.  If  the  star  of  the 
great  lion  is  gloomy,  the  heart  of  the  people 
will  not  rejoice.  If  the  moon  is  seen  on  the 
first  da}'  of  the  month,  Accad  will  pro.sper." 
From  that  ancient  period  to  the  present  there 
has  prevailed  among  the  superstitious,  in 
all  ages  and  nations,  a  belief  that  stars  and 
astrological  signs  bear  some  relation  to  the 
fate  of  men  and  nations. 


^ 


^tj^Ji^^X^i^ 


BIRS-I-NIMRDD. 


-15 


'  ail' 


40 


■^^-xb  ..„,*t^^''% 


s 


Lct.>':>5; 


Pyraiy 


Hei-nckoiiojis  - 


AUAUll/ 


Z    J. 


Latopoli&c 
iOlIinO|;oIis  ^  ' 


"  Tlifljcs 


\Etiri)hanfirie  y/^ 
*■         Island   HS>'"' 


■\ 


o 


\ 


\-^ 


\, 


Q 


10 


30 


35 


40 


CHAPTER    III. 


THE   ASSYRIAN   EMPIRE. 


SECTION    I.— CxEOGRAPHY    OF   ASSYRIA. 


^SSYRIA,  as  we  have  seen,  em- 
braced the  portion  of  the  Ti- 
gris -  Euphrates  valley  north 
of  Chaldoea,  or  Babylonia — the 
region  now  known  as  Kurdis- 
tan. The  soil  of  Assyria  was  not  so  fertile 
as  that  of  Chaldaea,  but  was  generally  pro- 
dudtive;  and  careful  cultivation  and  irriga- 
tion brought  luxuriant  yields  of  various 
grains  and  vegetables;  while  such  fruits  as 
the  citron,  the  orange,  the  lemon,  the  date- 
palm,  the  pomegranate,  the  olive,  the  vine, 
the  fig  and  the  apricot  flourished  in  profu- 
sion, and  the  mulberry  gave  nourishment  to 
an  unusually  large  silk-worm  found  no- 
where else;  but  ever  since  the  fall  of  the 
Assyrian  Empire  the  country  has  been  ex- 
posed to  the  ravages  of  plundering  nomad 
hordes  and  to  the  devastations  of  hostile 
armies,  so  that  this  region  is  now  almost  a 
wilderness. 

Unlike  Chalda;a,  which,  as  we  have  ob- 
sen^ed,  produced  no  stone  or  minerals  of  anj^ 
kind,  Assyria  was  supplied  with  an  abund- 
ance of  stone,  iron,  copper,  lead,  silver,  an- 
timony and  other  metals;  while  bitumen, 
naphtha,  petroleum,  sulphur,  alum  and  salt 
were  also  yielded  in  sufficient  quantities. 

Assyria  has  a  varied  climate,  but  on  the 
whole  the  summers  are  cooler  and  the  win- 
ters more  severe  than  in  Chaldrea,  because 
of  mountain  breezes  from  the  Zagros  and 
from  Armenia;  while  there  is  also  more 
moisture,  and  in  portions  of  the  country 
heavy  rains,  snows  and  dews  fall  during  the 
winter  and  spring. 

The  wild  animals  of  Assyria  were  the 
lion,  the  leopard,  the  lynx,  the  hyena,  the 

1-9.-U.  H.  -  ^ 


jackal,  the  ibex,  the  gazelle,  the  jerboa,  the 
bear,  the  deer,  the  wolf,  the  stag,  the  buffalo, 
the  beaver,  the  fox,  the  hare,  the  badger, 
the  porcupine,  the  wild  cat,  the  wild  boar, 
the  wild  sheep  and  the  wild  ass.  The  riv- 
ers abounded  with  fish,  and  the  marshy 
thickets  with  wild  fowl.  The  domestic  ani- 
mals were  the  camel,  the  horse,  the  ass,  the 
mule,  the  ox,  the  cow,  the  sheep,  the  goat 
and  the  dog. 

The  true  heart  of  Assj'ria  was  the  coun- 
try close  along  the  Tigris  between  latitude 
tliirt3"-five  degrees  and  thirty-six  degrees 
and  thirtj'  minutes  north.  Within  these 
limits  were  the  four  great  cities  marked  by 
the  mounds  of  Khorsabad,  Mosul,  Nimrud 
and  Kileh-Sherghat,  besides  a  multitude  of 
cities  of  minor  importance.  Three  of  the 
four  great  capitals  of  the  Assyrian  Empire 
were  located  on  the  east  bank  of  the  river; 
but  the  early  capital,  Asshur,  now  called 
Kileh-Sherghat,  was  on  the  west  bank.  The 
Assyrian  ruins  strew  the  countrj-  between 
the  Tigris  and  the  Khabour.  Mounds  ex- 
ist along  the  Khabour' s  great  western  afflu- 
ent, and  even  near  Seruj,  in  the  country 
between  Harran  and  the  Euphrates.  But 
the  remains  on  the  east  side  of  the  Ti- 
gris are  more  extensive  and  more  import- 
ant. Nebbi-Yunus,  Koyunjik  and  Nim- 
rud — which  have  furnished  by  far  the  most 
valuable  and  interesting  of  the  Assyrian 
monuments — are  all  situated  on  the  east 
side  of  the  Tigris,  while  the  only  places  on 
the  west  side  which  have  yielded  striking 
relics  are  Arban  and  Kileh-Sherghat. 

In  Assyria,  as  in  Chaldaea,  four  cities  were 
in  early    times   preeminent.     The  Book  of 

37) 


138 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  Y.—ASS )  lUA . 


Genesis  iu  speaking  of  the  Assyrian  emi- 
gration from  Chaldsea,  or  the  Land  of  Shi- 
nar,  says:  "Out  of  that  land  went  forth 
Asshur,  and  builded  Nineveh,  and  the  city 
Rehoboth,  and  Calah  and  Resen."  In  the 
flourishing  period  of  the  Assyrian  Empire 
we  find  four  cities — Nineveh  (or  Ninua), 
Calah,  Asshur  and  Dur-Sargina,  (  or  City  ot 
Sargon  ) — all  of  which  were  cities  of  the  first 
rank.  Besides  these  four  capitals,  there 
were  a  vast  number  of  minor  cities  and 
towns,  so  numerous  that  the  whole  country 
is  strewn  with  their  ruins.  Among  these 
minor  places  were  Tarbisa,  Arbil  { or  Arbela), 
Arapkha  and  Khazeli,  in  the  region  between 
the  Tigris  and  the  Zagros  mountains,  the 
ancient  Assj'ria  proper  and  the  modern 
Kurdistan;  and  Harran,  Tel-Apni,  Razappa 
(or  Rezeph)  and  Amida  in  the  North-west ; 
Nazibina,  (or  Nisibis)  on  the  eastern  branch 
of  the  Khabour;  Sirki  (or  Circesium),  at  the 
confluence  of  the  Khabour  with  the  Eu- 
phrates; Anat  on  the  Euphrates,  a  little  be- 
low the  junction  ;  Tahiti,  Margarisi,  Sidi- 
kan,  Katni,  Beth-Khalupi,  and  others  be- 
tween the  lower  course  of  the  Khabour  and 
the  Tigris. 

On  the  east  bank  of  the  Tigris,  opposite 
the  present  town  of  Mosul,  are  the  ruins  of 
the  once-mighty  city  of  Nineveh,  the  cele- 
brated and  magnificent  capital  of  the  Assyr- 
ian Empire  when  that  monarchy  was  iu  the 
zenith  of  its  greatness  and  splendor.  The 
name  Nineveh  is  read  on  the  bricks,  and 
a  uniform  tradition  from  the  time  of  the 
Arab  conquest  gives  the  mound  this  title. 
These  are  the  most  exten.sive  ruins  of 
Assyria.  As  the  city  will  be  described  in  a 
sub.secjuent  part  of  this  book,  we  will  not 
enter  into  any  minute  description  of  the 
place  in  this  connection.  At  the  present 
town  of  Khorsabad,  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
Tigris,  about  nine  miles  north  of  Nineveh, 
are  the  ruins  of  I)ur-vSargina  (City  of  Sar- 
gon), chief  of  which  are  those  of  the  mag- 
nificent palace  erected  there  by  the  famous 


Sargon,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  of 
Assyrian  monarchs.  The.se  ruins  were 
brought  to  light  in  recent  ^-ears  by  the  ex- 
cavations of  that  enterprising  French  ex- 
plorer, M.  Botta.  The  present  town  of 
Nimrud,  on  the  east  side  of  the  Tigris,  about 
twenty  miles  south  of  the  ruins  of  Nineveh 
in  a  diredt  line,  and  about  thirty  miles  by 
the  course  of  the  Tigris,  occupies  the  site  of 
the  ancient  Calah,  the  second  great  Assyrian 
capital  cit}',  whose  ruins,  among  which  are 
those  of  several  royal  palaces,  cover  an  area 
of  nearly  one  thousand  English  acres,  which 
is  little  over  half  the  area  of  the  ruins  of 
Nineveh.  Forty  miles  south  of  Nimrud,  at 
Kileh-Sherghat,  on  the  west  bank  of  the 
Tigris,  are  the  remains  of  the  ancient  city  of 
vAsshur,  the  third  great  city  and  the  early 
Asssjrian  capital,  who.se  ruins,  marked  by 
long  lines  of  low  mounds,  are  scarcely  less 
in  extent  than  those  of  Calah. 

Four  miles  north-west  from  Khorsabad 
are  the  ruins  of  Tarbisa,  among  which  are 
those  of  a  royal  palace  and  several  temples. 
About  twenty  miles  south-east  of  Khorsabad 
is  the  ruin  of  Keremles.  About  halfway 
between  the  ruins  of  Nineveh  and  Nimrud, 
or  Calah,  is  Selamiyah,  supposed  by  .some  to 
be  the  Resen  of  vScripture.  About  forty 
miles  east  of  Nimrud  was  the  famous  citj' 
of  Arabil,  or  Arbil,  called  Arbela  by  the 
Greeks,  and  still  retaining  its  ancient  desig- 
nation. Besides  these  principal  towns  of 
Assyria  proper,  the  inscriptions  mention  a 
large  number  of  cities  whose  .site  is  not 
known. 

Considering  the  wonderful  discoveries 
made  in  this  field  of  ancient  Oriental  histors^ 
within  the  last  half  century  by  the  patience 
and  diligence  of  .such  renowned  explorers  as 
Layard  and  Botta,  the  day  may  not  be  far 
distant  when  other  ruins  ma}-  be  identified 
with  undiscovered  places  recorded  in  ancient 
writings.  Let  us  hope  that  the  zeal  of  some 
future  explorer  may  further  add  to  our  stock 
of  knowledge  of  the  ancient  Oriental  world. 


sofA'C/'s  OF  .issy-Av.ix  ///sroA'y. 


'39 


SECTION    II.— SOURCES    OF    ASSYRIAN    HISTORY. 


UR  sources  of  Assyrian  historj- 
are  tlie  Greek  historians,  He- 
mdotus  and  Ctesias,  and  the 
Assyrian  inonuiiK-ntal  inscrip- 
tions. Little  reliance  can  be 
placed  upon  exact  dates  relating  to  the  an- 
nals of  most  of  the  very  ancient  nations. 
With  ^\ssyrian  chronologj-,  however,  we 
can  depend  upon  the  accuracy  of  the  two 
trustworthy  documents  already  alluded  to — 
the  Canon  of  Ptolemy,  a  Babylonian  record 
having  important  bearing  upon  Assyrian 
dates,  and  the  Assyrian  Canon,  discovered 
and  edited  by  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  in  1862, 
and  which  gives  the  succession  of  the  Ass^-r- 
ian  kings  for  251  years,  beginning  with  the 
year  911  B.  C.  and  ending  660  B.  C.  These 
two  documents  not  only  harmonize  remark- 
ably with  each  other,  but  they  agree  admir- 
ably with  statements  of  Berosus  and  Hero- 
dotus. According  to  Berosus,  Assyria  be- 
came independent  of  Chaldsea  about  1300 
B.  C,  and  according  to  Herodotus  half  a 
century  later,  about  the  j^ear  1250  B.  C. 
From  these  sources,  and  from  the  inscrip- 
tions on  Assyrian  tablets,  bricks  and  sculp- 
tures, we  are  able  to  fix  the  dates  of  As.sj'r- 
ian  events  with  tolerable  accuracy. 

With  respedl  to  the  duration  and  antiquity 
of  the  Assyrian  monarchy,  the  two  original 
authorities  are  the  Greek  historians  alluded 
to  at  the  beginning  of  the  preceding  para- 
graph, and  between  these  two  the  judgment 
of  the  learned  has  since  been  divided.  Cte- 
-sias  maintained  that  the  Assyrian  mon- 
archy had  an  existence  of  1306  or  1360 
years,  and  that  it  had  almost  as  remote 
an  antiquity  as  had  the  city  of  Baby- 
lon :  while  Herodotus  as.serted  that  the 
Assyrian  Empire  had  a  duration  of  le,ss 
than  seven  centuries,  beginning  about  the 
j-ear  B.  C.  1250,  when  a  flouri.shing  Empire 
had  alreadj-  existed  in  Chaldaea  for  more 
than  a  thousand  years  from  the  time  of 
Nimrod.  Ctesias  was  followed  by  such 
writers  as  Cephalion,  Castor,  Diodorus  Sicu- 


lus,  Nicolas  of  Damascus,  Trogus  I^jmpeius, 
Agathias,  Syncellus,  Velleius  Paterculus, 
Josephus,  lui.sebius,  and  Moses  of  Chorcne, 
among  the  ancients,  and  by  Freret,  Rollin 
and  Clinton,  among  the  moderns.  He- 
rodotus has  been  sustained  by  such  mf)dern 
writers  as  Volnej-,  Heeren,  B.  G.  Niebuhr, 
Brandis,  the  two  Rawlin.sons  and  many 
others.  The  English  historians  and  Orient- 
alists consider  the  Assyrian  Empire  as  hav- 
ing ended  in  625  B.  C,  while  the  French 
regard  the  \ear  606  B.  C.  as  the  date  of  that 
event. 

Herodotus  wrote  within  two  centuries 
after  the  fall  of  the  Assyrian  Empire,  and 
about  thirty  years  before  Ctesias.  He  had 
traveled  extensively  in  the  East,  as  well  as 
in  Eg3"pt,  and  had  availed  himself  of  all  the 
accessible  sources  of  information,  consulting 
the  Chaldseans  of  Babylon  and  others.  He 
was  thoroughly  honest  and  conscientious, 
and  implicit  reliance  can  be  placed  in  the 
accuracy  of  his  statements.  He  had  espe- 
cially endeavored  to  inform  himself  fully 
and  correcth-  regarding  A.ssyria,  of  which 
country  he  designed  writing  an  elaborate 
work  entirely  distinct  from  his  general  his- 
tor\-. 

Ctesias  also  visited  the  East,  .spending" 
seventeen  years  at  the  court  of  the  Persian 
king.  Being  the  court-phjsician  to  Arta- 
xerxes  Mnemon,  he  may  have  had  access  to 
the  archives  in  the  pos.session  of  the  Persian 
monarchs.  He  was  a  man  of  such  temper 
and  spirit  as  to  be  di.sposed  to  differ  with 
others.  He  flath'  called  Herodotus  "a 
liar,"  and  was  therefore  resolved  to  differ 
with  him.  He  continually  differs  with 
Thucydides  wherever  the>-  handle  the  same 
.subject.  He  peqietuallj-  di.sagrees  with 
Ptolemy  on  Babylonian  chronology,  and 
with  Manetho  on  Egyptian  dates.  He  is  also 
constantly  at  variance  with  the  cuneifonu 
inscriptions,  which  generally  confirm  the 
statements  of  Herodotus.  His  Oriental  his- 
torj-  likewise  contradicts  the  Old  Testament. 


140 


ANCIENT   HISTOR Y.— ASSYRIA. 


as  he  places  the  destrudlion  of  Nineveh 
at  875  B.  C,  long  before  the  time  of  Jonah. 
The  judgment  of  Aristotle,  of  Plutarch,  of 
Arrian,  among  the  ancients,  and  of  Niebuhr, 
Bunscn  and  other  modern  historians  and 
Orientalists,  is  all  on  the  side  of  Herodotus, 
whose  chronology  is  to  be  preferred,  on 
every  account,  to  that  of  Ctesias. 

Herodotus  assigns  the  year  B.  C.  1250  as 
the  beginning  of  the  Assj'rian  Empire, 
which,  according  to  his  account,  lasted  six 
and  a  half  centuries.  During  the  first  five 
hundred  and  twent}^  j'ears  of  this  period, 
from  B.  C.  1250,  to  B.  C.  730,  the  Assyrians 
maintained  their  supremacy  over  Western 
Asia,  after  which  the  Medes  revolted  and 
formed  an  independent  kingdom  east  of  the 
Zagros  mountains.  The  Assyrian  mon- 
arch\-,    thus   reduced,    lasted    one    hundred 


and  thirty  years  longer,  to  the  close  of  the 
seventh  century  before  the  Christian  era, 
when  the  Medes  took  and  destroyed  Nineveh 
(B.  C.  603).  These  dates,  though  nearer 
the  truth  than  those  of  Ctesias,  are  not  abso- 
lutely accepted  by  modern  historians  and 
Orientalists. 

The  chronology  of  Berosus  coincides  more 
nearly  with  that  of  Herodotus  than  with 
that  of  Ctesias.  As  his  sixth  Chaldaean,  or 
Babjdonian  djaiasty,  which  was  Assyrian  in 
race,  began  to  reign  about  1300  B.  C,  and 
as  the  Assj-rian  monarchy  became  inde- 
pendent when  this  dynasty  was  founded,  it 
follows  that  the  foundation  of  the  Assyrian 
Empire  dates  from  that  year.  As  Berosus 
also  placed  the  fall  of  the  Assyrian  Empire 
at  625  B.  C,  that  empire  must  have  existed 
six  hundred  and  .seventy-five  years. 


SECTION    III.— POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


IE  history  of  Assyria  is  divided 
into  three  periods — the  period 
of  its  subjection  to  Chaldcea, 
from  the  time  of  the  settlement 
of  the  Ass}'rians  in  the  Tigris 
valley  and  Upper  Me.sopotamia  to  B.  C. 
1300;  the  Old  Assyrian  Empire  (B.  C.  1300- 
745);  and  the  New  or  Lower  Assyrian  Em- 
pire (B.  C.  745-625). 

The  origin  of  the  Assyrians  is  shrouded 
in  obscurity,  although  it  is  known  that  the}' 
were  a  Semitic  tribe  originally  dwelling  in 
Chaldaea,  the  Scriptural  Shinar,  and  that 
they  migrated  to  the  middle  Tigris  ^•alley 
during  the  general  movement  of  Semitic  and 
Hamitic  tribes  from  ' '  the  land  of  Shinar, ' ' 
some  time  after  Nimrod's  death.  Says  the 
Mosaic  account:  "Out  of  that  land  went 
forth  Asshur  and  builded  Nineveh,  and  the 
city  Rehoboth,  and  Calah,  and  Re.sen  be- 
tween Nineveh  and  Calah;  the  same  is  a 
great  city. ' ' 

It  was  before  their  settlement  along  the 
middle  Tigris,  and  while  they  yet  dwelt  in 
the  flat  alluvial  plain  in  the  southern  portion 
of  the   Tigris-Euphrates   valley — that  pro- 


dudlive  region  where  nature  so  readily  sup- 
plied everj'thing  requisite  for  the  support  of 
man,  with  .so  little  exertion  on  his  part — it 
was  there  that  the  Assyrians  had  grown 
from  a  family  into  a  tribe  or  nation,  and  had 
developed  a  religion  and  learned  the  most 
essential  of  the  arts.  The  style  and  char- 
adter  of  the  Assyrian  archite(5lure  indicates 
that  it  originated  in  the  low  flat  alluvium 
where  brick  and  bitumen  were  the  only 
building  materials.  The  cuneiform  writing 
of  the  As.syrians  also  shows  its  Chaldtean 
origin;  while  their  religion  was  verj^  nearly 
identical  with  that  of  their  southern  neigh- 
bors, the  onh'  essential  point  of  difference 
being  that  the  chief  Assyrian  god,  Asshur, 
was  unknown  in  Chaldaea.  The  monu- 
mental and  tablet  inscriptions  thus  verify 
the  statements  of  the  Pentateuch,  in  repre- 
senting the  Assyrians  as  originally  dwelling 
in  Chaldaea,  and  at  an  early  period  migra- 
ting northward  to  the  middle  Tigris  region. 
It  is  not  known  whether  the  Semitic  and 
Hamitic  migrations  from  Chaldaea,  their 
mother  country,  were  voluntar>'  removals  on 
the  part  of  the  migrating  tribes  themselves, 


POLITICAL    Ills '/ V  )R )  -. 


141 


or  conipulsor)-  colonizations  inaugurated 
and  carried  out  by  the  Clialdnean  nionarclis. 
One  body  led  by  Terah,  Abraham's  father, 
reni()\-ed  from  Ur  to  Harran:  another  from 
the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf  to  Syria, 
Canaan  and  Phoenicia;  and  a  third,  the 
Assyrian  branch,  larger  than  either  of  the 
other  two,  ascended  the  Tigris  valley,  occu- 
pied Adiabene,  with  the  neighboring  dis- 
tridls,  gave  its  own  tribal  name  of  Asshur  to 
its  chief  city  and  territory,  and  was  known 
to  adjacent  peoples  first  as  a  separate  tribe, 
and  afterwards  as  an  independent  and  pow- 
erful nation.  The  date  of  their  settlement  in 
Assyria  is  uncertain,  but  it  must  have  oc- 
curred before  the  reigns  of  the  Chaldsean 
kings,  Purna-puriyas  and  Kurri-galzu,  in 
the  fifteenth  century  before  the  Christian 
era.  A  temple  to  Anu  and  Vul  was  erecled 
on  the  site  of  Asshur,  as  early  as  the  nine- 
teenth century^  before  Christ,  by  Shamas- 
Vul,  the  son  and  viceroy  of  the  Chaldaean 
king,  Ismi-Dagon. 

The  Assyrians  were  likelj-  at  first  gov- 
erned in  their  new  country  by  viceroys  under 
the  Chaldsean  sovereigns.  Bricks  of  a  Baby- 
lonian description  have  been  discovered  at 
Kileh-Sherghat,  the  site  of  the  ancient 
Asshur,  the  early  Assyrian  capital,  which 
are  belie\^ed  to  be  older  than  any  distincflly 
Assyrian  remains,  and  which  were  in  all 
probability  stamped  by  these  viceroys.  Very 
soon,  however,  the  Assyrians  liberated  them- 
selves from  the  Chaldaean  yoke  and  founded 
an  independent  kingdom  of  their  own  in 
their  new  abode,  while  the  old  Chaldaean 
Empire  continued  to  flourish  in  the  alluvial 
plain  at  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf.  The 
co-existence  of  the.se  two  kingdoms  side  by 
side  is  attested  by  a  mutilated  tablet  of  much 
later  date,  containing  a  .synchronistic  record 
of  Assyrian  and  Chaldaean  annals  from  a 
very  remote  antiquity.  This  tablet  gives 
us  the  names  of  three  of  the  most  ancient 
Assyrian  monarchs  —  Asshur-bil-nisi-su, 
BuzuR-AssHUR  and  Asshur-upallit — the 
first  two  of  whom  are  recorded  as  having 
concluded  treaties  of  peace  with  contempo- 
rar>'  Chaldsean,  or  Babylonian  .sovereigns, 
while  the  third   interfered   in  the  domestic 


affairs  of  Chaldaea,  deposing  a  usurper  and 
restoring  the  rightful  claimant,  his  own  rela- 
tive, to  the  throne.  Intermarriages  occurred 
between  the  royal  families  of  Assyria  and 
Chakkea  at  this  early  period;  and  Asshur- 
upallit,  the  last  of  these  three  Assyrian 
kings,  had  given  a  daughter  in  marriage  to 
the  Chaldaean  king,  Purna-puriyas.  On  the 
death  of  the  latter,  his  son,  Kara-khar-das, 
became  king  of  Chakkea,  but  lost  his  life 
in  attempting  to  jjut  down  a  rebellion  of 
his  own  subjects,  and  was  succeeded  by  a 
usurper,  Nazi-bugas.  Thereupon  A,s,shur- 
upallit  marched  an  army  into  Chaldaea, 
defeated  and  killed  the  u.surper,  and  placed 
Kurri-galzu,  another  sou  of  Purna-puriyas, 
on  the  Chaldaean  throne. 

The  tablet  just  referred  to  shows  the 
power  and  influence  of  Assyria  at  this  early 
day  as  fully  equal  to  that  of  her  more  ancient 
southern  neighbor.  After  the  events  just 
narrated  Assyrian  history  is  a  blank  for 
sixty  years,  only  the  names  of  the  kings 
being  known  to  us.  The  bricks  of  Kileh- 
Sherghat  show  us  that  Asshur-upallit  was 
succeeded  as  king  by  his  son,  Bel-LI'SH,  or 
Bellikhus,  who  was  followed  in  succession 
by  his  son  Pudil,  his  grandson  Vul-lush 
I.,  and  his  great-grandson  ShalmanESER  I. 
All  that  is  known  of  Bel-lush,  Pudil  and 
Vul-lush  I.  is  that  they  eredled  or  repaired 
important  edifices  at  A.sshur  (now  Kileh- 
Sherghat),  which  remained  the  capital  of 
Assyria  for  several  centuries  later.  This 
place,  located  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Ti- 
gris, was  not  favorably  situated,  the  most 
fertile  region  of  Assyria  being  on  the  east 
bank;  but  Calah  and  Nineveh  were  not  yet 
built. 

Shalmaneser  I.,  who  reigned  from  B.  C. 
1320  to  B.  C.  1300,  is  chiefly  distinguished 
as  the  founder  of  Calah  (now  Nimrud),  the 
.second  of  those  great  cities  which  the  Assyr- 
ian kings  delighted  to  embellish  with  mag- 
nificent edifices,  and  which  in  the  cour.se  of 
.several  centuries  succeeded  Asshur  as  the 
capital.  Calah  was  advantageously  situated 
on  the  east  bank  of  the  Tigris,  forty  miles 
north  of  A.sshur,  in  a  region  of  exceeding 
fertility  and  great  natural  strength,  being 


142 


ANCIENT  HISTORY 


ASSYRIA. 


protected  on  one  side  by  the  Tigris  and  on 
the  other  by  the  Shor-Derreh  torrent,  while 
it  was  defended  on  the  south  hy  the  Greater 
Zab  and  on  the  north-east  by  the  Khazr,  or 
Ghazr-Su.  The  inscriptions  of  Asshur-izir- 
pal  show  us  that  Shalmaneser  I.  undertook 
expeditions  against  the  tribes  on  the  upper 
Tigris,  and  founded  cities  in  that  region, 
which  he  colonized  with  settlers  brought 
from  other  distant  quarters.  Shalmaneser's 
extension  of  the  Assyrian  dominion  to  the 
northward  ranks  him  as  the  first  known  As- 
syrian conqueror.  With  the  death  of  vShal- 
maneser  I.  in  B.  C.  1300  ends  the  first  period 
of  Assyrian  historj" — the  period  of  its  sub- 
je(5lion  to  Chaldcea. 

Shalmaneser  I.  was  succeeded  on  the  As- 
syrian throne  by  his  .son  Tiglathi-Nin  I., 
the  founder  of  the  Old  Assyrian  Empire, 
which  embraces  the  second  period  of  As- 
.syrian  historj'  ( B.  C.  1300-B.  C.  745). 
The  date  of  this  monarch  is  seen  to  syn- 
chronize with  the  time  given  by  Berosus  as 
the  beginning  of  the  .sixth  Chaldsean,  or 
Babylonian  dynasty,  and  b}-  Herodotus  to 
the  founding  of  the  Assyrian  Empire.  The 
inscriptions  mention  Tiglathi-Nin  as  trans- 
ferring to  Assj'ria  the  supremacy  hitherto 
claimed  and  exercised  by  Chaldsea,  or 
Babylonia,  in  consequence  of  a  successful 
war  with  the  latter  kingdom,  which  circum- 
stance induced  him  to  in.scribe  upon  his  sig- 
net-seal this  title:  "Tiglathi-Nin,  King  of 
A.ssyria,  son  of  Shalmaneser,  King  of  As- 
.syria,  and  conqueror  of  Kar-Dunyas.  Who- 
ever injures  my  device  or  name,  maj'  Asshur 
and  Vul  destroy  his  name  and  country." 
This  signet-seal,  recovered  six  centuries 
later  at  Babylon  by  Sennacherib,  shows  that 
Tiglathi-Nin  I.  reigned  personally  for  some 
time  in  that  city,  where  he  afterwards  estab- 
lished an  Assyrian  dynast)-  of  dependent 
kings — probably  a  branch  of  his  own  family. 
On  a  genealogical  tablet  he  is  called  "King 
of  Sumir  and  Accad, ' '  a  title  not  bestowed 
on  any  of  the  other  kings. 

ChakUea,  or  Babylonia,  was  not,  however, 
from  this  time  permanently  subjedl  to  As- 
syria. Nearl\-  a  century  after  Tiglathi- 
Nin'.''.  conquest  the  .\ssyrian  supremac}'  was 


shaken  off,  and  Babylonian  kings  with 
Semitic  names,  and  perhaps  of  Assyrian  de- 
scent,  were  engaged  in  wars  with  the  As- 
syrian monarchs.  The  Babylonian  king- 
dom was  not  permanently  subjected  to  the 
Assyrian  dominion  until  the  time  of  Sargon, 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighth  century  be- 
fore Christ,  and  even  under  the  dynasty  of  the 
Sargonida;  the  Babylonians  were  constantly 
in  revolt,  and  were  only  reconciled  to  As- 
syrian rule  when  Esar-haddon  united  the 
two  crowns  and  reigned  alternately  at  Baby- 
lon and  Nine\'eh.  Nevertheless,  from  the 
time  of  Tiglathi-Nin's  conquest  Assyria 
was  recognized  as  the  ruling  power  in  the 
Tigris-Euphrates  valley,  as  is  fully  .shown 
by  its  conquest  of,  and  its  imposition  of  a 
dynasty  upon,  the  southern  kingdom.  Its 
influence  was  therefore  felt,  even  while  its 
yoke  was  rejected;  and  from  the  time  of 
Tiglathi-Nin's  conquest,  throughout  the 
whole  period  of  Ass^'rian  ascendenc}'  in  the 
Tigris-Euphrates  valley,  the  process  of 
Semitizing  the  Chaldseans  went  on ;  the 
names  of  the  Babylonian  kings  during  all 
this  time  being  Semitic,  whether  those  kings 
recognized  the  domination  of  Assj-ria  or 
were  at  war  with  that  power. 

Tiglathi-Nin  I.,  who  was  the  eighth  and 
last  Assyrian  king  of  the  line  founded  by 
A.sshur-bil-nisi-su,  died  about  B.  C.  1280. 
After  an  inter\'al  of  half  a  century  there  fol- 
lowed another  series  of  eight  kings,  known 
to  us  chiefly  through  the  celebrated  Tiglath- 
Pileser  cj-linder,  which  gives  us  the  succes- 
sion of  five  of  them,  but  completed  from  the 
united  testimony  of  .several  other  documents, 
the  most  important  of  which  are  the  Baby- 
lonian and  Assyrian  synchronistic  tablet 
and  the  mutilated  statue  of  the  goddess  Ish- 
tar  now  in  the  British  Museum,  which  bears 
an  inscription  giving  the  names  and  di- 
re6t  genealogical  succession  of  the  last  three 
of  these  monarchs.  The  combined  reign.s 
of  these  eight  sovereigns  embraced  about 
one  hundred  and  sixty  years,  from  about 
B.  C.  1230  to  B.  C.  1070. 

Bel-kudur-uzur,  the  first  king  of  this 
.second  .series,  is  only  known  on  account  of 
his  unsuccessful  war  with  the  contemporary 


iH^i.rric.ii.   ///S7()h')'. 


143 


king  of  Bal)\li)n.  Tlu-  Scinilic  line  of  kings 
established  at  Babj-loii  l)y  the  Assyrians 
were  dissatisfied  with  their  state  of  vassal- 
age; and  during  Bel-kudur-uzur's  reign  in 
Assyria,  Vul-baladan,  the  Babylonian  vassal 
ruler,  attempted  to  throw  ofiFthe  yoke  of  his 
Assyrian  suzerain,  and  the  war  which  fol- 
lowed ended  in  the  defeat  and  death  of  Bel- 
kudur-uzur  in  a  great  battle  about  B.  C. 
1210. 

NiN-PALA-ziRA  was  the  second  Assyrian 
monarch  of  this  second  series.  It  is  not 
certain  whether  he  was  related  to  his  prede- 
cessor, but  he  avenged  his  death.  The  in- 
scriptions call  him  "the  king  who  organized 
the  country  of  Assyria,  and  established  the 
troops  of  AssA'ria  in  authority."  Sooii  after 
he  ascended  the  throne,  Vul-baladan  of 
Babylon,  encouraged  by  his  triumph  over 
Bel-kudur-uzur,  invaded  Assyria  and  at- 
tacked Asshur,  its  capital,  but  was  com- 
pletel}-  defeated  in  a  battle  under  the  walls 
of  the  cit\-  and  fled  into  his  own  dominions, 
leaving  Assyria  in  peace  during  the  re- 
mainder of  Nin-pala-zira's  reign. 

AsSHUR-DAYAN  I.,  the  third  king  of  the 
second  series,  enjoyed  a  long  and  prosperous 
reign,  according  to  the  inscription  of  Tig- 
lath-Pileser  I.  He  made  a  successful  raid 
into  Babylonia  and  returned  to  Assyria  with 
valuable  spoils.  He  also  tore  down  the  de- 
lapidated  temple  eredled  by  Shamus-Vul, 
the  son  of  Ismi-Dagon,  at  Asshur;  and  the 
structure  was  not  rebuilt  until  sixty  years 
later. 

Mutaggil-Nebo,  the  son  and  succes.sor 
of  Asshur-dayan  I.,  reigned  from  about  B. 
C.  1 170  to  B.  C.  1 150.  The  Tiglath-Pileser 
in-scription  informs  us  that  "Asshur,  the 
great  Lord,  aided  him  according  to  the 
wishes  of  his  heart,  and  established  him  in 
strength  in  the  government  of  Assyria." 

AssHUR-Ris-iLiM,  the  son  and  successor 
of  Mutaggil-Nebo,  reigned  between  about 
B.  C.  1 150  and  B.  C.  1130;  and  the  inscrip- 
tion of  his  son,  Tiglath-Pileser  I.,  calls  him 
"the  powerful  king,  the  subduer  of  rebel- 
lious countries,  he  who  has  reduced  all  the 
accursed."  The  synchronistic  tablet  of  Ba- 
bylonian and  Assyrian  history  informs  us 


that  he  warred  with  Nebuchadnezzar  I.,  or 
Nabu-kudur-uzur,  of  Babylon,  who  began 
the  struggle  by  in\-ading  A.ssyria  by  way  of 
the  Zagros  mountains,  but  was  repulsed  by 
As.shur-ris-ilim  in  person  in  this  mountain 
region,  and  driven  back.  Nebuchadnezzar 
invaded  Assyria  a  .second  time,  directly  from 
the  south,  but  was  defeated  by  Asshur-ris- 
ilim's  general,  and  driven  back,  leaving  to 
the  victorious  Assyrians  fortj-  chariots  and 
a  baiuier. 

Tiglath-Pileser  I.,  the  son  and  succes- 
sor of  Asshur-ris-ilim,  who  died  about  B. 
C.  1130,  was  the  first  Assyrian  king  of 
who.se  histor)^  we  possess  elaborate  details. 
The  discover}'  of  his  inscription  on  two  du- 
plicate c}dinders,  now  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum, and  which  was  tran.slated  in  1857  by 
Sir  Henry  Rawliuson,  Mr.  Fox  Talbot,  Dr. 
Hincks  and  M.  Oppert,  has  given  us  the 
record  of  events  during  the  first  five  }-ears 
of  his  reign. 

The  Tiglath-Pileser  inscription  begins  by 
naming  and  glorifying  the  "gjeat  gods" 
who  "rule  over  heaven  and  earth,"  and  who 
are  "the  guardians  of  the  kingdom  of  Ti- 
glath-Pileser." These  deities  are  "A.sshur, 
the  great  Lord,  ruling  supreme  over  the 
gods;  Bel  the  lord,  father  of  the  gods,  lord 
of  the  world;  Sin,  the  leader,  the  lord  of 
empire;  Shamas,  the  establisher  of  heaven 
and  earth;  Vul,  he  who  causes  the  tempest 
to  rage  over  hostile  lands;  Nin,  the  cham- 
pion who  subdues  evil  spirits  and  enemies; 
and  Ishtar,  the  source  of  the  gods,  the  queen 
of  victorj',  she  who  arranges  battles. ' '  These 
gods,  it  is  said  in  this  inscription,  have 
placed  Tiglath-Pileser  upon  his  throne,  have 
"made  him  firm,  have  confided  to  him  the 
supreme  crown,  have  appointed  him  in 
might  to  the  sovereignt}^  of  the  people  of 
Bel,  and  have  granted  him  preeminence,  ex- 
altation and  warlike  power; ' '  and  are  in- 
voked to  make  the  "duration  of  his  empire 
continue  forever  to  his  royal  posterity,  last- 
ing as  the  great  temple  of  Kharris-Matira." 

Then  follows  a  self-glorification  of  the 
king  with  an  enumeration  of  his  titles, 
thus:  "Tiglath-Pileser,  the  powerful  king, 
king  of  the  people  of  various  tongues;  king 


144 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


of  the  four  regions;  king  of  all  kings;  lord 
of  lords;  the  supreme;  monarch  of  nionarchs ; 
the  illustrions  chief,  who,  imder  the  aus- 
pices of  the  Sun-god,  being  armed  with  the 
scepter  and  girt  with  the  girdle  of  power 
over  mankind,  rules  over  all  the  people  of 
Bel;  the  mighty  prince,  whose  praise  is 
blazoned  forth  among  the  kings;  the  ex- 
alted sovereign,  whose  servants  Assliur  has 
appointed  to  the  government  of  the  four 
regions,  and  whose  name  he  has  made  cele- 
brated to  posterity;  the  conqueror  of  many 
plains  and  mountains  of  the  Upper  and 
Lower  country;  the  victorious  hero,  the 
terror  of  whose  name  has  overwhelmed  all 
regions;  the  bright  constellation  who,  as  he 
wished,  has  warred  against  foreign  coun- 
tries, and  under  the  auspices  of  Bel — there 
being  no  equal  to  him — has  subdued  the 
enemies  of  Asshur. ' ' 

Tiglath-Pileser  then  recounts  his  con- 
quests during  his  first  five  years  as  king. 
The  first  people  he  subdued  were  the  Mus- 
kai,  or  Moschians — believed  to  be  the  Me- 
shech  of  the  Old  Testament — who  were 
governed  by  five  kings  and  inhabited  the 
countries  of  Alzi  and  Purukhuz,  parts  of 
Taurus  or  Niphates.  The  Moschians  had 
negledled  for  fifty  years  to  pay  the  tribute 
due  from  them  to  the  Assyrians;  and  at  this 
time,  with  a  force  of  twenty  thousand  men, 
they  had  invaded  the  neighboring  coun- 
try of  Qummukh  (afterwards  Commagene), 
an  Assyrian  dependency,  and  had  subdued 
it;  but  were  there  attacked  and  defeated  by 
Tiglath-Pileser  I. ,  who  then  conquered  Com- 
magene, burned  its  cities,  plundered  its  tem- 
ples, ravaged  the  country,  and  carried  away 
cattle  and  treasure  as  booty  or  tribute. 

The  following  is  a  passage  from  this  in- 
scription: "The  country  of  Kasiyara,  a 
difficult  region,  I  passed  through.  With 
their  twenty  thousand  men  and  their  five 
kings,  in  the  country  of  Qummukh  I  en- 
gaged. I  defeated  them.  The  ranks  of 
their  warriors  in  fighting  the  battle  were 
beaten  down  as  if  by  the  tempest.  Their 
carcasses  covered  the  valleys  and  the  tops 
of  the  mountains.  I  cut  off  their  heads. 
Of  the  battlements   of  their  cities  I  made 


heaps,  like  moimds  of  earth.  Their  mova- 
bles, their  wealth,  and  their  valuables  1 
plundered  to  a  countless  amount.  Six  thou- 
sand of  their  common  soldiers,  who  fled  be- 
fore my  servants,  and  accepted  my  yoke,  I 
took  and  gave  over  to  the  men  of  my  own 
territory'  as  slaves." 

The  Moschians  still  refusing  to  pay  trib- 
ute, Tiglath-Pileser  condudted  a  second 
campaign  in  their  country  and  again  sub- 
dued them,  completely  overrunning  Comma- 
gene,  which  was  annexed  to  the  Assyrian 
Empire.  He  also  attacked  the  neighboring 
tribes  in  their  fastnesses,  burned  their  cities 
and  ravaged  their  territories.  He  likewise 
invaded  the  countrj^  of  the  Khatti  (Hittites), 
because  two  of  their  tribes  had  committed 
an  aggression  on  Assyrian  territory,  and 
completely  chastising  them,  carried  away 
one  hundred  and  twenty  chariots  and  much 
valuable  booty.  He  also  invaded  the  moun- 
tainous region  of  the  Zagros,  reduced  its 
stronghold  and  seized  much  treasure. 

Tiglath-Pileser's  third  campaign  was 
against  the  Nairi  tribes  of  the  Euphrates 
valley  in  Northern  Syria  and  Mesopotamia, 
the  distridl  subsequently  known  as  Comma- 
gene.  These  tribes  were  ruled  by  many 
petty  kings.  Those  east  of  the  Euphrates 
were  easily  conquered,  but  those  west  of  the 
river  were  only  subdued  after  a  desperate 
and  protracfted  struggle.  The  Assyrians 
gained  a  great  vidlory,  taking  one  hundred 
and  twenty  chariots,  and  pursued  the  Nairi 
and  their  allies  to  the  Mediterranean.  The 
country  was  frightfully  ravaged,  and  the 
vanquished  were  required  to  pay  a  tribute 
of  twelve  hundred  horses  and  two  hundred 
cattle. 

In  his  fourth  campaign,  Tiglath-Pileser  at- 
tacked the  Aramaeans,  or  Syrians,  who  then 
occupied  the  narrow  valley  of  the  Euphra- 
tes for  a  distance  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
miles,  from  the  territories  of  the  Tsukhi,  or 
Shuhites,  between  Anah  and  Hit  on  the 
south-east,  to  Carchemish,  the  capital  and 
stronghold  of  the  Khatti,  or  Hittites,  on  the 
north-west.  Tiglath  Pileser  says  in  his  in- 
scription that  he  reduced  this  region  "at  one 
blow.  "     He  first  plundered  the  east  bank 


'^.' 


«^~^  i^/  ^  / 


// 


'''^m 


TIGI.ATHl'U.EsKK    SIDKMIN'G    A    TUWN.       I'AI.ACK    Ol      N  IN  HVh  1 1. 


POLITICAI.    ins  TOR ) '. 


145 


of  the  river,  and  then  crossed  the  stream  in 
boats  covered  with  skins,  and  burned  six 
cities  on  the  west  bank  and  carried  away  a 
vast  amount  of  boot}-. 

Tigkith-Pileser's  fifth  and  last  campaign 
was  against  the  land  of  Musr,  or  Muzr,  in 
the  upper  part  of  the  present  Kurdistan, 
which  was  completely  overrun,  and  its 
armies  were  defeated,  its  cities  bunied  and 
its  strongholds  taken.  Ann,  the  capital, 
was  spared  because  of  its  submission,  and  a 
tribute  was  imposed  upon  the  countn,-.  The 
Comani,  who,  though  Assyrian  subjedls, 
had  assisted  the  inhabitants  of  Musr,  were 
punished  for  their  defetflion  by  Tiglath-Pi- 
leser,  who  invaded  their  countn,-,  defeated 
their  army  of  twenty  thousand  men,  and  took 
their  towns  and  castles,  some  by  stonn  and 
others  without  resistance,  burning  the  for- 
mer and  sparing  the  latter,  but  destroj-ing 
the  fortifications  of  both;  and  the  "far- 
spreading  country  of  the  Comani ' '  was  soon 
reduced  to  submission  and  an  increased  trib- 
ute exadled  from  it. 

After  this  fifth  campaign,  Tiglath-Pileser's 
inscription  sums  up  the  result  of  his  wars 
thus:  "There  fell  into  my  hands  altogether 
between  the  commencement  of  mj-  reign  and 
ray  fifth  3'ear,  forty-two  countries  with  their 
kings,  from  the  banks  of  the  river  Zab  to 
the  banks  of  the  river  Euphrates,  the  coun- 
try of  the  Khatti,  and  the  upper  ocean  of 
the  setting  sun.  I  brought  them  under  one 
government;  I  took  hostages  from  them; 
and  I  imposed  on  them  tribute  and  offer- 
ings." 

The  king  next  boasts  of  his  hunting  ex- 
ploits. He  says  that  he  killed  with  his  ar- 
rows in  the  country  of  the  Hittites,  "four 
wild  bulls,  strong  and  fierce;"  and  in  the 
vicinitj'  of  Harran,  on  the  banks  of  the  river 
Khabour,  he  slew  ten  large  wild  buffaloes 
and  took  four  alive.  He  took  these  cap- 
tured animals,  with  the  hides  and  horns  of 
the  killed  beasts,  to  Asshur,  his  capital  citj-. 
He  also  says  that  he  slew  nine  hundred  and 
twenty  lions  in  his  various  journeys,  and  at- 
tributes all  these  exploits  to  the  protetflion 
of  the  gods  Nin  and  Nergal. 

This  great  monarch  then  gives  an  account 


of  the  Iniildings  which  he  had  eredled  and 
of  the  improvements  which  he  had  intro- 
duced. Among  these  buildings  are  the  tem- 
ples to  Ishtar,  Martu,  Bel,  II,  and  the  pre- 
siding deities  of  the  citj-  of  Asshur,  his  own 
royal  palaces,  and  castles  for  the  military 
defence  of  his  dominions.  Among  his  pub- 
lic improvements  he  mentions  the  construc- 
tion of  works  of  irrigation,  the  introducftion 
of  cattle  and  wild  animals  from  other  coun- 
tries into  Assyria,  as  well  as  of  foreign  veg- 
etable productions,  the  increase  in  the  num- 
ber of  chariots,  the  enlargement  of  his  do- 
minions, and  the  growth  of  the  population. 

Before  speaking  of  the  restoration  of  two 
old  temples  in  the  city  of  Asshur,  Tiglath- 
Pileser  gives  an  account  of  his  descent  from 
Nin-pala-zira,  the  founder  of  the  dynast\-, 
as  follows:  "Tiglath-Pileser,  the  illustrious 
prince,  whom  Asshur  and  Nin  have  exalted 
to  the  utmost  wishes  of  his  heart;  who  has 
pursued  after  the  enemies  of  Asshur,  and 
has  subjugated  all  the  earth — the  son  of 
Asshur-ris-ilim,  the  powerful  king,  the  sub- 
duer  of  rebellious  countries,  he  who  has  re- 
duced all  the  accursed — the  grandson  of 
Mutaggil-Nebo,  whom  Asshur,  the  Great 
Lord,  aided  according  to  the  wishes  of  his 
heart,  and  established  in  strength  in  the 
government  of  Assj^ria — the  glorious  off- 
spring of  Asshur-dayan,  who  held  the  scepter 
of  dominion,  and  ruled  over  the  people  of 
Bel;  who  in  all  the  works  of  his  hands  and 
the  deeds  of  his  life  placed  his  reliance  on 
the  great  gods,  and  thus  obtained  a  long 
and  prosperous  life — the  beloved  child  of 
Nin-pala-zira,  the  king  who  organized  the 
country'  of  Assyria,  who  purged  his  territo- 
ries of  the  wicked,  and  established  the 
troops  of  Assyria  in  authoritj'." 

The  temple  torn  down  by  Asshur-dayan 
I.,  the  great-grandfather  of  Tiglath-Pileser 
I.,  and  which  had  stood  for  six  hundred  and 
forty-one  j^ears,  was  not  rebuilt;  and,  after 
its  site  had  remained  vacant  for  sixty  years, 
Tiglath-Pileser,  soon  after  his  accession,  re- 
solved upon  the  eredlion  there  of  a  new  tem 
pie  to  the  old  gods,  Ann  and  Vul,  believed 
to  lie  tutelan,^  deities  of  the  city  of  Asshur. 

Tiglath-Pileser  relates  the  circumstances 


146 


AXCIENT  HIS  TOR  y.—ASS  YRIA. 


•of  the  building  and  dedication  of  this  new 
temple,  as  follows:  "In  the  beginning  of  mj' 
reign,  Ann  and  Vul,  the  Great  Gods,  my 
lords,  guardians  of  ni)'  steps,  gave  me  a 
command  to  repair  this  their  shrine.  So  I 
made  bricks;  I  leveled  the  earth;  I  took  its 
dimensions:  I  laid  down  its  foundations 
upon  a  mass  of  strong  rock.  This  place, 
throughout  its  whole  extent,  I  paved  with 
bricks  in  set  order;  fifty  feet  deep  I  prepared 
the  ground;  and  upon  this  substrudture  I 
laid  the  lower  foundations  of  the  temple  of 
Anu  and  Vul.  From  its  foundation  to  its 
roof  I  built  it  up  l^etter  than  it  was  before. 
I  also  built  two  lofty  towers  in  honor  of 
their  noble  god.ships,  and  the  holy  place,  a 
spacious  hall,  I  consecrated  for  the  conven- 
ience of  their  worshipers,  and  to  accommo- 
date their  votaries,  who  were  numerous  as 
the  stars  of  heaven.  I  repaired,  and  built, 
and  completed  my  work.  Outside  the  tem- 
ple I  fashioned  with  the  same  care  as  inside. 
The  mound  of  earth  on  which  it  was  built  I 
enlarged  like  the  firmament  of  the  rising 
stars,  and  I  beautified  the  entire  building. 
Its  towers  I  raised  up  to  heaven,  and  its 
roofs  I  built  entirely  of  brick.  An  invio- 
lable shrine  for  their  noble  godships  I  laid 
down  near  at  hand.  Anu  and  Vul,  the 
Great  Gods,  I  glorified  inside  the  shrine.  I 
set  them  up  in  their  honored  purity,  and  the 
hearts  of  their  noble  godships  I  delighted." 

The  other  temple,  which  Tiglath-Pile.ser 
I.  says  he  restored,  was  one  to  Ann  only, 
which,  like  the  one  just  mentioned,  was 
originally  built  by  Shamas-Vul,  the  son  of 
Ismi-Dagon.  This  building  had  likewise 
fallen  into  decay,  but  had  not  been  taken 
down  like  the  other.  Tiglath-Pileser  says 
that  he  "leveled  its  site,"  and  then  rebuilt 
it  "from  its  foundations  to  its  roofs,"  en- 
larging and  embellishing  it.  Inside  the 
building  he  "sacrificed  precious  vicftims  to 
his  lord,  Vul."  In  the  temple  he  likewise 
deposited  a  collecflion  of  rare  stones  and  mar- 
bles, which  he  had  procured  in  the  countrj' 
of  the  Nairi  during  his  wars  there. 

Tiglath-Pileser's  inscription  ends  with  the 
following  lengthy  invocation:  ' '  Since  a  holy 
place,  a  noble  hall,  I  have  thus  consecrated 


for  the  use  of  the  Great  Gods,  my  lords, 
Anu  and  Vul,  and  have  laid  down  an  adytum 
for  their  special  worship,  and  have  finished 
it  successfully,  and  have  delighted  the  hearts 
of  their  noble  godships,  may  Anu  and  Vul 
preserve  me  in  power !  May  the}'  support 
the  men  of  my  government  !  May  they  es- 
tablish the  authority  of  m^'  officers  !  May 
they  bring  the  rain,  the  joy  of  the  year,  on 
the  cultivated  land  and  the  desert,  during 
my  time !  In  war  and  in  battle  may  they 
preserve  me  vicftorious !  Manj-  foreign 
countries,  turbulent  nations,  and  hostile 
kings  I  have  reduced  under  my  yoke;  to  my 
children  and  my  descendants,  may  they  keep 
them  in  firm  allegiance !  I  will  lead  my 
steps"  (or,  "may  they  establish  mjf  feet"), 
"firm  as  the  mountains,  to  the  last  days, 
before  Asshur  and  their  noble  godships ! 
The  list  of  my  vi(5tories  and  the  catalogue 
of  my  triumphs  over  foreigners  hostile  to 
Acshur,  which  Anu  and  Vul  have  granted 
to  my  arms,  I  have  inscribed  on  my  tablets 
and  cylinders,  and  I  have  placed,  [to  remain] 
to  the  last  days,  in  the  temple  of  my  lords, 
Anu  and  Vul.  And  I  have  made  clean  the 
tablets  of  vShamas-Vul,  my  ancestor;  I  have 
made  sacrifices,  and  sacrificed  vidlims  before 
them,  and  have  set  them  up  in  their  places. 
In  after  times,  and  in  the  latter  daj-s  *  *  * 
if  the  temples  of  the  Great  Gods,  my  lords 
Anu  and  Vul,  and  these  shrines  .should  be- 
come old  and  fall  into  decay,  may  the  prince 
who  comes  after  me  repair  the  ruins  !  May 
he  raise  altars  and  sacrifice  vidtims  before 
my  tablets  and  cylinders,  and  may  he  set 
them  up  again  in  their  places,  and  may  he 
inscribe  his  name  on  them  together  with  my 
name  !  As  Anu  and  Vul,  the  Great  Gods, 
have  ordained,  may  he  worship  honestly 
with  a  good  heart  and  a  full  trust !  Who- 
ever shall  abrade  or  injure  my  tablets  and 
cylinders,  or  shall  moisten  them  with  water, 
or  scorch  them  with  fire,  or  expose  them  to 
the  air,  or  in  the  holy  place  of  God  shall 
assign  them  a  place  where  they  cannot  be 
seen  or  understood,  or  shall  erase  the  writ- 
ing and  inscribe  his  own  name,  or  .shall  di- 
vide the  sculptures  and  break  them  ofi"  from 
my  tablets,  maj-  Anu  and  Vul,  the  Great 


POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


147 


Gods,  my  lords,  coiisig^ii  his  iiainc  to  perdi- 
ditioii !  Maj-  thej^  curse  him  with  an  irre- 
vocable curse  !  May  the\-  cause  his  sov- 
ereignty to  perish  !  Ma\-  they  pluck  out  the 
stabilit}'  of  the  throne  of  his  empire  !  Let 
not  his  ofFsprius^  survixe  him  in  the  king- 
dom !  Let  his  ser\-ants  be  broken  !  Let  his 
troops  be  defeated  !  Let  him  fly  vanquished 
before  his  enemies  !  May  Vul  in  his  furj' 
tear  up  the  produce  of  his  land !  May  a 
scarcitj'  of  food  and  of  the  necessaries  of  life 
afflict  his  countrj- !  For  one  day  may  he  not 
be  called  happy  !  May  his  name  and  his 
race  perish  ! ' ' 

The  document  is  then  dated — "In  the 
month  Kuzalla  (Chisleu),  on  the  29th  day, 
in  the  year  presided  over  hy  Ina-iliya-pallik, 
the  Rabbi-Turi." 

The  most  striking  feature  of  Tiglath-Pi- 
leser's  inscription  is  its  religious  tone.  His 
wars  are  not  onlj^  wars  of  conquest,  but  thej^ 
are  religious  wars,  designed  to  extend  the 
worship  of  Asshur,  as  well  as  to  enlarge  the 
dominion  of  the  Assyrian  monarch.  All 
the  king's  successes  in  war  and  hunting  are 
ascribed  to  the  aid  and  favor  of  Asshur. 
The  wars  were  untertaken  to  chastise  the 
enemies  of  Asshur,  as  the  Hebrews  fought 
to  punish  the  enemies  of  Jehovah.  The 
commanding  position  which  religion  occu- 
pied in  the  hearts  of  the  Assyrian  kings  and 
people  is  proven  hy  the  long  and  solemn  in- 
vocation of  the  Great  Gods,  the  religious 
character  and  purposes  of  the  wars,  the  ac- 
count given  of  the  building  and  renovation 
of  the  temples,  the  dedication  of  offerings, 
and  the  characteristic  final  praj-er.  The 
deep  earnestness  of  this  religious  faith  of 
the  Assyrians,  in  its  outward  manifestations, 
displayed  a  zeal  and  fanaticism  akin  to  that 
of  the  Israelites  in  their  wars  with  the  Ca- 
naanites,  Philistines  and  other  nations,  or  to 
that  of  the  followers  of  Mohammed  in  their 
warfare  against  the  foes  of  Islam.  The  Assyr- 
ian king  glorifies  himself  much,  but  he  glori- 
fies the  gods  more.  While  fighting  for  his 
own  credit  and  the  extension  of  his  own  do- 
minion, he  likewise  fights  for  the  honor  and 
glorj-  of  Asshur,  the  Great  Lord,  and  the 
other  Great  Gods,   whom  the  neighboring 


nations  rejecl.  His  buildings  are  temples 
for  the  worship  of  the  gods.  His  whole 
mind  is  deeply  imbued  with  religious  feeling, 
showing  that  the  gods  are  "in  all  his 
thoughts. ' '  This  religious  feeling  is  highly 
exclusive  and  intolerant. 

The  king,  while  exalting  himself,  is  .still 
"the  illustrious  chief,  who,  under  the  aus- 
pices of  the  Sun-god,  rules  over  the  people 
of  Bel,"  and  "whose  servants  Asshur  ha.s 
appointed  to  the  government  of  the  four 
regions."  If  his  enemies  fly,  "the  fear  of 
A.sshur  has  overwhelmed  them;  if  they  re- 
fuse tribute,  they  withhold  the  offerings  due 
to  Asshur."  The  king  himself  feels  inclined 
to  make  an  expedition  against  a  countrj-; 
"his  lord  Asshur,  invites  him"  to  proceed 
thither;  if  he  collects  an  army.  "Asshur  has 
committed  the  troops  to  his  hand."  When 
a  countr\-  not  previously  subjedt  to  Assyria 
is  attacked,  it  is  because  the  people  "do  not 
acknowledge  Asshur;"  when  its  plunder  is 
carried  off,  it  is  to  adoni  and  enrich  the 
temples  of  Asshur  and  the  other  gods;  when 
it  yields,  the  first  thing  is  to  "attach  it  to 
the  worship  of  Asshur."  The  king  hunts 
"under  the  auspices  of  Nin  and  Nergal," 
or  of  "Nin  and  Asshur;  "  he  puts  his  tablets 
under  the  protedlion  of  Anu  and  \'ul;  he 
attributes  the  long  life  of  one  ancestor  to  his 
exceeding  piety,  and  the  prosperity  of  an- 
other to  the  protecftion  which  Asshur  be- 
stowed upon  him.  The  name  of  A.sshur 
occurs  in  the  inscription  almost  forty  times, 
or  once  in  nearly  every-  paragraph.  Shamas, 
the  Sun-god,  and  the  gods  Anu,  \w\  and 
Bel,  are  mentioned  frequently;  while  Sin, 
the  Moon-god,  and  the  deities  Nin,  Nergal, 
Ishtar,  Beltis,  Martu  and  II,  are  also  ac- 
knowledged. All  this  is  on  an  historical 
inscription. 

The  energetic  charaeler  of  Tiglath-Pileser 
I.  is  fully  attested  by  his  militarj'  exploits 
during  the  first  five  years  of  his  reign,  as 
displayed  in  the  conquest  of  six  neighbor- 
ing nations  and  many  petty  tribes;  the 
humbling  of  forty-two  kings;  the  traversing 
of  difficult  mountain  regions;  the  vicflories 
in  battle;  the  sieges  of  towns;  the  stonning 
and  destruction  of  strongholds;  the  ravaging 


14? 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  i  \—ASS  YRIA. 


of  countries;  the  incessant  employment  of 
the  monarch;  his  pursuit  of  the  chase;  his 
contests  with  the  wild  bull  and  the  lion,  in 
which  he  rivaled  "the  mighty  hunter  before 
the  Lord,"  counting  his  victims  by  the  hun- 
dreds; while  all  this  time  he  was  concerned 
for  the  welfare  of  his  dominions,  as  shown 
in  the  magnificent  strucftures  which  he 
eredled,  the  introducftion  of  the  animal  and 
vegetable  producfts  of  other  regions  and 
climes,  the  fertilizing  of  the  land  bj'  works 
of  irrigation,  and  bis  measures  in  general, 
' '  improving  the  condition  of  the  people,  and 
obtaining  for  them  abundance  and  security. ' ' 

Asshur  was  still  the  Assyrian  capital,  and 
no  other  native  city  is  yet  named,  though 
mention  is  made  of  "fortified  cities."  In 
his  inscription  Tiglath-Pileser  calls  himself 
' '  king  of  the  four  regions, ' '  and  also  ' '  the 
exalted  sovereign  whose  servants  Asshur 
has  appointed  to  the  government  of  the 
country  of  the  four  regions. ' '  The  Assyrian 
territory  seems  at  this  time  to  have  been 
bounded  on  the  east  by  the  Zagros  moun- 
tains, on  the  north  by  the  Niphates  ranges, 
on  the  west  by  the  Euphrates,  and  on  the 
south  by  Chaldaea,  or  Babylonia.  The 
plunder  of  other  countries  poured  wealth 
into  Assyria,  the  introduction  of  enslaved 
captives  cheapened  labor,  irrigation  was  im- 
proved, new  fruits  and  animals  were  intro- 
duced, fortifications  were  repaired,  palaces 
were  renovated,  and  temples  were  embel- 
lished or  rebuilt. 

The  countries  bordering  upon  Assyria  on 
the  north,  east  and  west  exhibited  condi- 
tions of  political  weakness,  and  were  divided 
into  a  multitude  of  petty  nations  and  tribes, 
the  most  powerful  of  which  could  raise  an 
army  of  only  twenty  thousand  men.  These 
nations  lacked  the  essential  elements  of 
unity,  being  di\'ided  into  many  separate 
communities  governed  by  their  own  kings, 
who  in  times  of  war  united  against  the 
common  foe,  but  who  were  too  jealous  of 
each  other  to  even  .selecfl  a  generali.ssimo. 
On  the  Euphrates,  between  Hit  and  Carch- 
emish,  were,  first,  the  T.sukhi,  or  Shu- 
hites;  next  above  them,  on  both  banks  of 
the  river,  were  the  Aramaeans,  or  Syrians, 


who  possessed  many  cities;  and  above  the 
Aramaeans,  also  on  both  sides  of  the  stream, 
were  the  Khatti,  or  Hittites,  who  were  di- 
vided into  tribes,  and  whose  chief  city  was 
Carchemish.  North  and  north-west  of  the 
Khatti  were  the  Muskai,  or  Moschi,  a  war- 
like people,  who  endeavored  to  extend  their 
dominion  eastward  into  the  territory  of  the 
Qumnuikh,  or  people  of  Commagene.  The 
Qummukh  occupied  and  ruled  the  mountain 
region  on  both  sides  of  the  upper  Tigris, 
and  had  many  strongholds,  most  of  which 
were  on  the  west  bank  of  the  river.  East 
of  the  Qummukh  were  the  Kirkhi,  while 
south  of  them  were  the  Nairi,  who  occupied 
the  region  from  Lake  Van,  along  the  line  of 
the  Tigris,  to  the  district  called  Commagene 
by  the  Romans.  The  Nairi  had,  at  least, 
twenty-three  kings,  each  of  whom  ruled  his 
own  tribe  or  city.  South  of  the  eastern 
Nairi  was  the  country  of  Musr,  or  Muzr, 
a  mountain  region  densely  inhabited  and 
abounding  in  strong  castles.  To  the  east 
and  south-east  of  Muzr  were  the  Comani,  or 
Quwana,  the  most  powerful  of  Assyria's 
neighbors,  like  the  Moschi,  able  to  raise 
an  army  of  twenty  thousand  men.  The 
Comani  and  the  people  of  Muzr  were  at  this 
time  close  allies.  Across  the  lower  Zab, 
skirting  the  Zagros,  were  the  many  petty 
tribes  who  offered  little  resistance  to  the 
Assyrian  arms. 

Thus,  late  in  the  twelfth  century  before 
Christ,  Assyria  was  a  compa(fl  and  powerful 
kingdom,  surrounded  on  her  eastern,  north- 
em  and  western  sides,  by  weak  neighbors. 
Centralized  therefore  under  one  monarch, 
Assyria,  with  a  single  great  capital,  was 
easily  able  to  triumph  over  foes,  who,  al- 
though united  in  confederations  to  resist 
their  common  enemy,  were  easily  dispensed 
after  suffering  a  defeat.  Only  on  her  south- 
ern border  did  Assyria  have  a  powerful 
neighbor  in  the  ancient  and  venerable  mon- 
archy of  Chaldaea,  or  Babylonia,  whose 
Semitic  sovereigns,  although  established  in 
that  country  by  Assyrian  mfluence,  had  re- 
nounced all  dependence  upon  their  old  pro- 
tedlors.  Chaldaea,  almost  equal  in  territor- 
ial extent  and  population  to  Assyria,  and  as 


POLITICAL    HIS  TOR  V. 


149 


much  centralized  and  consolidated  in  her 
govenimeiit,  served  as  a  check  to  her  ag- 
gfressive  and  vigorous  northern  neighbor, 
thus  preserving  some  semblance  of  the  bal- 
ance of  power  in  Western  Asia. 

In  addition  to  the  great  cylinder  inscription 
of  Tiglath-Pileser  I.,  five  more  years  of  his 
annals  exist  in  fragments,  which  give  us  ac- 
counts of  the  continuance  of  his  aggressive 
expeditions,  principally  in  the  dire(5lion  of 
the  north-west,  during  which  he  subdued  the 
Lulumi  in  Northern  Syria,  attacked  and  took 
Carchemish,  and  pursued  the  fleeing  inhabi- 
tants across  the  Euphrates  in  boats. 

Near  the  end  of  his  reign  Tiglath-Pileser 
I.  marched  an  army  into  Babj'lonia,  and 
ravaged  its  northern  territories  with  fire  and 
sword  for  two  years,  taking  the  cities  of  Dur- 
Kurri-galzu  (now  Akkerkuf ),  Sippara  of  the 
Sun,  and  Sippara  of  Anunit  (the  Sephar- 
vaini,  or  "two  Sipparas  "  of  the  Hebrews), 
Hupa  (or  Opis),  on  the  Tigris,  and  finally 
the  great  capital,  Babylon,  itself. 

After  the  capture  of  Babylon,  Tiglath- 
Pileser  I.  led  an  army  np  the  Euphrates, 
and  took  several  of  the  cities  of  the  Tsukhi. 
But  the  Babj'lonian  king,  Merodach-iddin- 
akhi,  captured  some  of  Tiglath-Pileser' s 
baggage  during  his  retreat  from  Babj'lon. 
The  images  of  the  gods  which  Tiglath- 
Pileser  had  carried  with  him  in  his  expedi- 
tion against  Babylonia,  to  secure  him  vidlor}- 
b}-  their  presence,  were  captured  bj-  Mero- 
dach-iddin-akhi,  who  carried  them  to  Baby- 
lon, where  they  remained  over  four  centuries 
as  mementoes  of  victory.  The  Sj'nchronis- 
tic  Tablet,  the  chief  authorit},-  for  this  war, 
says  nothing  of  the  capture  of  the.se  idols, 
but  this  fadl  is  mentioned  in  a  rock  inscrip- 
tion of  Sennacherib's  at  Bavain,  near  Khors- 
abad. 

Thenceforth  a  spirit  of  ho.stility  and  jeal- 
ous rivairs'  marked  the  relations  between 
Assj^ria  and  Babylonia,  and  no  more  inter- 
marriages occurred  between  their  roj'al  fam- 
ilies, while  wars  between  them  were  almost 
constant,  nearly  every  Assyrian  king  of 
whose  historj'  we  possess  detailed  knowl- 
edge, leading  one  or  more  expeditions  into 
Babylonia. 


In  a  cavern  from  which  rises  theTsnpuat, 
or  eastern  branch  of  the  Tigris,  near  the  vil- 
lage of  Korkhar,  about  fifty  or  sixty  miles 
north  of  Diarbekr,  is  a  bas-relief  .sculptured 
on  rock  smoothed  for  the  purpose,  consisting 
of  a  figure  of  Tiglath-Pileser  I.  in  his 
priestly  dress,  with  the  right  ann  extended 
and  the  left  hand  grasping  the  sacrificial 
mace,  wiih  the  following  inscription:  "Bj' 
the  grace  of  As,shur,  Shamas  and  Vul,  the 
Great  Gods,  I,  Tiglath-Pileser,  King  of  As- 
syria, son  of  Asshur-ris-ilim,  King  of  As- 
syria, who  was  the  son  of  Mutaggil-Nebo, 
King  of  Assyria,  marching  from  the  great 
sea  of  Akhiri"  (the  Mediterranean)  "to 
the  sea  of  Nairi"  (Lake  of  Van),  "for  the 
third  time  have  invaded  the  countrj'  of 
Nairi." 

Tiglath-Pileser  I.  was  succeeded  on  the 
Ass3'rian  throne  by  his  son  Asshur-bil- 
KALA,  of  whom  verj'  little  is  known  besides 
his  war  with  Merodach-shapik-ziri,  king  of 
Babylonia,  the  succes.sor  of  Merodach-iddin- 
akhi.  This  war  is  recorded  on  the  Synchro- 
nistic Tablet,  along  with  the  wars  of  As.shur- 
bil-kala's  father  and  grandfather,  but  the 
injured  condition  of  this  portion  of  the  tab- 
let pre\-ents  us  getting  details  from  it.  A 
monument  of  Asshur-bil-kala's  time — one 
of  the  oldest  Assyrian  sculptures  yet  remain- 
ing— bears  witness  that  he  was  adluated  by 
the  same  religious  spirit  displayed  by  his 
father,  and  that  he  also  adorned  temples  and 
set  up  images  of  the  gods.  A  mutilated 
female  figure,  supposed  to  be  the  image 
of  the  goddess  Ishtar,  discovered  by  Mr. 
Loftus  at  Koyunjik,  and  now  in  the  British 
Museum,  bears  a  dedicators-  inscription, 
almost  illegible,  from  which  it  appears  to 
have  been  .set  np  by  A.sshur-bil-kala,  the 
son  of  Tiglath-Pileser  I.  and  grandson  of 
Asshur-ris-ilim. 

It  is  suppo.sed  that  Asshur-bil-kala  reigned 
from  about  B.  C.  mo  to  B.  C.  1090.  His 
successor  seems  to  have  been  his  j-ounger 
brother,  Sha jias-Vui,  I. ,  of  whom  nothing 
is  known  except  his  building  or  repairing  a 
temple  at  Nineveh.  He  is  thought  to  have 
reigned  from  B.  C.  1090  to  B.  C.  1070:  being 
thus  contemporary  with  Samuel  or  Saul  in 


I50 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


Israel.  During  the  eleventh  centur>^  before 
Christ,  Assyria  for  a  time  passed  under  a 
cloud,  and  its  ancient  glories  were  then 
eclipsed  by  the  imperial  splendor  of  the 
Israelitish  kingdom  under  David  and  Sol- 
omon. For  two  centuries,  between  the 
reigns  of  Shamas-Vul  I.  and  Tiglathi-Nin 
II.,  who,  according  to  the  Assyrian  Canon, 
ascended  the  throne  of  Assyria  in  B.  C. 
889,  Assyrian  history  is  a  blank.  The  very- 
names  of  the  kings  are  almost  entirely  un- 
known to  us  for  three-fourths  of  this  period, 
from  about  B.  C.  1070  to  B.  C.  930.  The 
inscription  of  Shalmaneser  II.,  the  Black- 
Obelisk  king,  speaks  of  certain  cities  on  the 
west  bank  of  the  Euphrates  being  taken 
from  AssHUR-MAZUR,  whose  reign  has  been 
assigned  to  this  period. 

While  Assyria,  from  the  absence  of  records; 
at  this  time  had  apparently  simk  into  insig- 
nificance, her  influence  seems  to  have  ex- 
tended into  Egypt,  whose  kings  of  the 
Twenty-second  Dynasty  beginning  with 
Sheshonk  I.,  or  Shishak,  a  contemporar>- 
of  Solomon,  married  Assyrian  women  of 
royal  or  noble  birth,  who  gave  Ass>Tian 
names  to  their  children,  thus  introducing 
Semitic  names  in  Egyptian  dynastic  lists. 

When  Ass^-ria  again  emerged  from  dark- 
ness with  the  accession  of  Asshur-d.wan 
II.  about  B.  C.  930,  Asshur  was  still  the 
capital  of  the  kingdom.  A.sshur-da^-an  II. 
was  the  first  of  a  series  of  kings  who  re- 
paired and  enlarged  public  edifices,  which  is 
recorded  to  their  honor  in  the  inscription  of 
a  sub.sequent  sovereign.  Asshur-dayan  II. 
reigned  from  B.  C.  930  to  B.  C.  911.  His 
son  and  successor,  VuvLUSH  II.,  occupied 
the  throne  from  B.  C.  911  to  B.  C.  889. 
Nothing  is  j-et  known  of  the  history'  of  these 
two  kings,  no  historical  in.scriptions  of  their 
reigns  being  yet  found,  and  no  exploits  be- 
ing recorded  of  them  in  the  inscriptions  of 
later  sovereigns. 

TiGL.'VTHi-NiN  II.,  the  .succe.s.sor  of  Vul- 
lush  II.,  reigned  only  six  years;  but  accord- 
ing to  the  inscriptions  of  his  son  and  .suc- 
cessor, Asshur-izir-pal,  on  the  Nimrud  mon- 
olith, he  recorded  his  militarj-  exploits  and 
also  the  facfl  that  he  .set  up  his  sculptures  at 


the  sources  of  the  Tsupnat  river  beside  the 
sculptures  .set  up  by  his  ancestors,  Tiglath- 
Pile-ser  I.  and  Tiglathi-Nin  I.  The  A.ssyr- 
ian  Canon  assigns  the  reign  of  Tiglathi-Nin 
II.  between  the  years  B.  C.  889  and  B.  C. 
883. 

Asshur-izir-pal,  the  son  and  successor 
of  Tiglathi-Nin  II.,  reigned  twenty-five 
years,  from  B.  C.  883  to  B.  C.  858,  which 
period  is  one  of  the  most  flourishing  in  the 
annals  of  the  Assyrian  Empire.  Asshur- 
izir-pal  was  an  adtive  and  energetic  mon- 
arch, and  did  not  allow  himself  any  repose. 
The  limits  and  influence  of  Assyria  were 
expanded  in  everj'  diredtion,  and  her  pro- 
gress in  wealth  and  the  arts  was  so  rapid 
that  she  suddenly  attained  a  point  not  pre- 
viously reached  by  any  people.  The  size, 
magnificence  and  excellent  artistic  embel- 
lishment of  Asshur-izir-pal' s  architectural 
.stru(5lures,  the  high  skill  in  the  pracftical 
arts  which  they  exhibit,  the  pomp  and 
splendor  of  this  reign  which  they  imply, 
have  e.Kcited  the  wonder  and  admiration 
of  modern  Europe,  which  has  seen  that 
the  Assyrians  nine  centuries  before  Christ, 
or  nearly  twenty-eight  centuries  ago,  had 
reached  a  degree  of  advancement  in  the  in- 
ventions and  arts  of  practical  life  equal  to 
the  boasted  achievements  of  the  modern 
ages. 

Asshur-izir-pal' s  first  campaign  was  in 
the  north,  in  portions  of  Armenia,  where  he 
saj's  he  penetrated  a  region  "never  ap- 
proached by  the  kings  his  fathers."  Here 
he  easily  .subdued  the  mountaineers,  the 
Numi,  or  Elanii,  and  the  Kirkhi,  from 
whom  has  been  derived  the  name  of  the 
modern  Kurkh,  as  applied  to  some  ruins  on 
the  west  bank  of  the  Tigris,  about  twenty 
miles  below  Diarbekr,  some  remains  of 
which  have  been  transferred  to  the  British 
Mu.seum.  Asshur-izir-pal  took  and  de- 
stroyed the  fortresses  of  the.se  mountain 
tribes,  and  one  captive  was  taken  to  Arbela, 
where  he  was  flayed  and  hung  up  on  the 
town  wall. 

Asshur-izir-pal's  second  expedition  oc- 
curred in  the  same  year  as  the  first,  and  was. 
diredted  against  the  tribes  to  the  west  and 


POLITICAL    inSTOR  Y. 


151 


north-west  of  A,ss\Tia.  He  first  overran  the 
countries  of  Qummiikh,  Serki  and  Sidikan, 
or  Arbau,  and  reduced  them  to  tribute. 
Then  he  took  the  field  against  the  Laki 
of  Central  Mesopotamia,  where  the  people 
of  the  city  of  Assura  had  rebelled,  killed 
their  governor,  and  invited  a  foreigner  to 
govern  them.  The  rebels  submitted  on 
Asshur-izir-pal's  approach  and  .surrendered 
to  him  their  city  and  their  new  ruler,  who 
was  carried  in  fetters  to  Nineveh.  The 
rebellious  inhabitants  were  cruelly  punished 
by  Asshur-izir-pal,  who  plundered  the  city, 
gave  the  houses  of  the  rebel  leaders  to  his 
own  officers,  placed  an  Assyrian  governor 
over  the  citj-,  crucified  some  of  the  inhabi- 
tants, bunied  others,  and  cut  off  the  ears 
and  noses  of  the  remainder.  The  other 
kings  of  the  Laki  submitted,  and  sent  in 
their  tribute  readily,  though  it  was  "  a  heavy 
and  much-increased  burden." 

In  the  second  ^-ear  Asshur-izir-pal  under- 
took a  third  expedition.  Marching  north- 
ward, he  reduced  to  submission  the  kings  of 
the  Nairi,  who  had  recovered  their  inde- 
pendence, and  exadled  from  them  a  yearly 
tribute  in  gold,  silver,  horses,  cattle  and 
other  commodities.  Ascending  the  Tsupnat 
river,  or  Eastern  Tigris,  he  .set  up  his  memo- 
rial beside  monuments  hitherto  eredled  on 
the  same  site  by  Tiglath-Pileser  I.  and  by  the 
first  or  second  Tiglathi-Nin.  The  inscrip- 
tions also  give  Asshur-izir-pal's  own  account 
of  his  severe  treatment  of  the  revolted  c\ty 
of  Tela,  upon  retaking  it,  in  the  following 
words:  "Their  men,  young  and  old,  I  took 
prisoners.  Of  some  I  cut  off  the  feet  and 
hands;  of  others  I  cut  off  the  noses,  ears  and 
lips:  of  the  young  men's  ears  I  made  a  heap; 
of  the  old  men's  heads  I  made  a  minaret. 
I  exposed  their  heads  as  a  trophy  in  front 
of  their  city.  The  male  children  and  the 
female  children  I  burnt  in  the  flames.  The 
city  I  destroyed,  and  consumed,  and  burnt 
with  fire." 

Asshur-izir-pal's  fourth  campaign  was  in 
the  south-east,  where  he  crossed  the  Lesser 
Zab  and  entered  the  Zagros  range,  ravaged 
the  fruitful  valleys  with  fire  and  .sword,  took 
many  towns,  and   exadled   tribute   from   a 


dozen  petty  kings.  On  his  return,  he  built 
a  city  which  the  Babylonian  king  Tsibir  had 
destroyed  at  an  early  period,  and  named  it 
Dur-A.sshur,  in  gratitude  for  the  protedlion 
bestowed  upon  him  by  Asshur,  ' "  the  Great 
Lord,"  "  the  chief  of  the  gods." 

Asshur-izir-pal's  fifth  campaign  was  di- 
rected to  the  north.  Crossing  the  country 
of  the  Qummukh  and  receiving  their  tribute, 
the  warlike  king  invaded  the  Mons  Masius 
and  took  the  cities  of  Matyat  (now  Mediyat) 
and  Kapranisa.  He  then  crossed  the  Tigris 
and  warred  along  the  Niphates  ranges 
against  the  people  of  Kasijara  and  other 
enemies.  He  next  invaded  the  country  of 
the  Nairi,  where  he  says  he  destroyed  two 
hundred  and  fiftj'  strong  walled  cities,  and 
put  to  death  many  princes. 

Asshur-izir-pal's  sixth  campaign  was  in 
the  west.  He  started  from  Calah  (now  Nim- 
rnd),  where  he  crossed  the  Tigris,  marched 
through  Central  Mesopotamia,  received  trib- 
ute from  many  subjecft  towns,  among  which 
were  Sidikan  (now  Arban),  Sirki  and  Anat 
(now  Anah).  He  then  entered  the  terri- 
tories of  the  Tsukhi,  or  Shuhites,  took  their 
city  Tsur,  and  compelled  them  to  surrender, 
although  the}-  were  aided  by  the  Babylon- 
ians; after  which  he  invaded  Babylonia,  or 
Chaldsea,  and  chastised  its  people. 

His  seventh  campaign  was  likewise 
against  the  Shuhites,  who  had  rebelled 
against  the  Assyrian  yoke  and  invaded  the 
Assyrian  territories,  being  aided  by  their 
north-eastern  neighbors,  the  Laki.  The  allied 
army  numbered  twenty-thousand  men,  in- 
cluding many  warriors  who  fought  in  char- 
iots. Asshur-izir-pal  first  reduced  the  cities 
on  the  east  bank  of  the  Euphrates,  and,  as 
he  says,  ' '  made  a  desert ' '  of  the  banks  of  the 
Khabour,  and  impaled  thirty  of  the  chief 
captives  on  stakes,  in  punishment  for  the 
rebellion.  He  then  crossed  the  river  on 
rafts  and  defeated  the  Tsukhi  and  their 
allies  with  great  slaughter,  many  of  them 
being  drowned  in  their  flight  across  the 
the  river.  Six  thousand  five  hundred  of  the 
rebels  were  killed  in  the  battle,  and  the  west 
bank  of  the  river  was  frightfully  ravaged 
with  fire  and  sword;  cities  and  castles  were 


152 


A  NCIEN  T   HIS  TOR  V.—ASS'}  HI  A . 


bunied,  men  were  massacred,  and  women, 
children  and  cattle  were  carried  away.  One 
king  of  the  L,aki  escaped,  but  another  was 
carried  in  captivity  to  Assyria.  An  in- 
creased rate  of  tribute  was  exacfled  of  the 
conquered  people,  and  two  new  cities  were 
built  by  the  Assyrian  king,  one  on  either 
bank  of  the  Euphrates,  the  one  on  the  east 
bank  being  named  after  the  king,  and  the 
one  on  the  west  bank  after  the  god  Asshur. 

Asshur-izir-pal's  eighth  campaign  was 
higher  up  the  Euphrates,  where  the  Assyr- 
ian monarch  in^-aded  the  country  of  the  Beth- 
Adina,  to  piuiish  its  people  for  giving  refuge 
to  Hazilu,  the  king  of  the  Laki  who  had 
escaped  capture  after  his  defeat  in  the  pre- 
vious war.  Asshur-izir-pal  besieged  the 
people  of  Beth-Adina  in  their  chief  city, 
Kabrabi,  which  he  soon  took  and  burned. 
The  part  of  Beth-Adina  east  of  the  Euphra- 
tes, in  the  vicinity  of  the  modern  Balis,  was 
overrun  and  annexed  to  the  Assyrian  Em- 
pire, and  two  thousand  five  hundred  cap- 
tives were  settled  at  Calah. 

Asshur-izir-pal's  ninth  and  most  interest- 
ing campaign  was  the  one  against  S^'ria. 
After  marching  across  Northern  Mesopota- 
mia, and  receiving  tributes  from  various 
nations  and  tribes  on  the  wa)-,  the  A.ssj'rian 
king  crossed  the  Euphrates  on  rafts  and  en- 
tered the  city  of  Carchemish,  where  he  re- 
ceived the  submission  of  the  Hittite  king, 
Sangara,  whose  capital  was  that  cit}-,  and  of 
many  other  princes,  "who  came  reverently 
and  kissed  his  scepter."  Then  he  "gave 
command  to  advance  toward  Lebanon." 
He  entered  the  country  of  the  Patena,  which 
embraced  the  region  about  Antioch  and 
Aleppo,  and  took  their  capital,  Kinalua, 
located  between  the  Abri  (or  Afrin )  and  Oron- 
tes;  whereupon  the  rebel  king,  Lubarna,  in 
alarm,  submitted  and  agreed  to  pay  a  tribute. 
The  Assj-rian  monarch  then  crossed  the 
Orontes  and  destroyed  some  of  the  cities  of 
the  Patena,  and  marched  along  the  northern 
flank  of  Lebanon  to  the  Mediterranean.  In 
this  region  he  built  altars  and  offered  sacrifi- 
ces to  the  gods,  and  then  received  the  submis- 
sion of  the  leading  Phoenician  states,  such  as 
Tyre,  Sidon,  Byblus  and  Aradus.     He  then 


went  inland,  and  cut  timber,  set  up  sculp- 
tured memorials,  and  offered  sacrifice  on  the 
Amanus  mountains.  Among  the  plunder 
which  he  carried  to  Assyria  were  cedar 
beams  for  his  public  buildings  at  Nineveh. 

Asshur-izir-pal's  tenth  campaign,  and  the 
last  recorded,  was  in  the  region  of  the  Upper 
Tigris,  where  he  defeated  his  enemies  and 
overcame  all  resistance,  burned  cities  and 
carried  away  many  captives.  The  chief 
"roj'al  city"  which  he  assailed  was  Amidi, 
now  Diarbekr. 

During  all  his  ten  campaigns,  which  were 
prosecuted  during  the  first  six  years  of  his 
reign,  Asshur-izir-pal  indulged  in  the  sports 
of  the  cha.se.  He  records  among  his  in- 
scriptions that  on  one  occasion  he  killed  fifty 
large  wild  bulls  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
Euphrates,  and  captured  eight  of  the  same 
kind  of  beasts;  while  at  another  time  he 
slew  twenty  ostriches  and  captured  as  many. 
This  monarch's  .sculptures  bear  testimony 
that  hunting  the  wild  bull  was  a  favorite 
recreation  with  him.  He  had  a  menagerie 
park  in  the  vicinity  of  Nineveh,  in  which 
he  kept  various  strange  animals.  He  re- 
ceived, as  tribute  from  the  Phoenicians,  ani- 
mals called /rt!;^//A-,  or  pagdls — believed  to  be 
elephant.s — which  were  placed  in  this  zoo- 
logical enclosure,  where  he  says  they  throve 
and  bred.  A  certain  King  of  Egypt  sent 
him  a  present  of  curious  animals  when  he 
was  in  Southern  S3'ria.  In  an  obelisk  in- 
scription, designed  to  commemorate  a  great 
hunting  expedition,  he  says  he  took  all  sorts 
of  antelopes  to  Asshur  and  killed  lions, 
wild  sheep,  red  deer,  fallow  deer,  wild  goats, 
or  ibexes,  leopards  large  and  small,  bears, 
wolves,  jackals,  wild  boars,  ostriches,  foxes, 
hyenas,  wild  asses,  and  other  animals  not 
yet  identified.  An  inscription  of  his  at 
Nimrud  informs  us  that  in  another  hunting 
expedition  he  slew  three  hundred  and  sixty 
large  lions,  two  hundred  and  fifty-seven 
large  wild  cattle,  and  thirty  buffaloes;  and 
that  he  sent  to  Calah  fifteen  full-grown  lions, 
fifty  young  lions,  some  leopards,  .several 
pairs  of  wild  buffaloes  and  wild  cattle,  along 
with  ostriches,  wolves,  red  deer,  bears, 
cheetas  and  hyenas.     Thus,  like  his  distin- 


POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


'53 


jjiiished  ancestor,  Tighith-Pileser  I.,  As- 
shur-izir-{)al  was  renowned  alike  as  a  war- 
rior and  a  Inniter. 

Asshur-izir-pal  surjiassed  his  predecessors 
in  the  grandeur  of  his  public  edifices,  and 
the  profusion  of  sculpture  and  painting  in 
their  embellishment.  The  strudlures  of  the 
earlier  Ass\rian  kings  at  Asshur  were  far  in- 
ferior to  the  buildings  of  Asshur-izir-paland 
his  successors  at  Calah,  Nineveh  and  Dur- 
Sargina.  The  mounds  of  Kileh-Sherghat 
have  not  revealed  bas-reliefsor  traces  of  build- 
ings which  can  be  compared  with  those  which 
excite  the  wonder  of  the  traveler  at  Nim- 
rud,  Koyunjik  and  Khorsabad.  Asshur- 
izir-pal's  great  palace  was  at  Calah  (now  Nim- 
rud),  which  he  raised  from  the  condition  of 
a  provincial  town  to  that  of  a  metropolis  of 
his  empire.  This  palace  was  three  hundred 
and  .sixty  feet  long  and  three  hundred  feet 
wide,  had  .seven  or  eight  large  halls,  and 
many  more  small  chambers  grouped  round  a 
■central  court  one  hundred  and  thirt}'  feet 
long  and  almost  one  hundred  feet  broad. 
The  longest  hall  faced  toward  the  north,  was 
the  first  room  entered  upon  coming  from  the 
city,  and  measured  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
four  feet  in  length  and  thirty-three  feet  in 
breadth.  The  others  were  of  different  di- 
mensions, some  almost  as  spacious  as  the 
largest  one,  while  the  smallest  room  had  a 
length  of  sixtj^-five  feet  with  a  breadth  of 
less  than  twenty  feet.  The  chambers  were 
nearly  or  altogether  square,  and  none  of 
them  were  more  than  thirty  feet  in  their 
greatest  dimensions.  The  entire  palace  was 
raised  upon  a  high  platform,  con.structed  of 
sun-dried  bricks,  but  cased  on  the  outside 
with  hewn  stone.  Of  the  two  grand  facades, 
■one  faced  the  north,  and  on  that  side  was  an 
ascent  to  the  platform  from  the  town;-  the 
other,  in  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Layard,  faced 
the  Tigris,  which  in  ancient  times  flowed  at 
the  foot  of  the  platform  toward  the  W'est. 
On  the  northern  front  were  two  or  three 
great  gateways  flanked  with  andro-sphinxes, 
or  .sculptured  figures  representing  the  body 
of  a  winged  lion  with  the  head  of  a  man. 
These  gatewaj-s  led  to  the  principal  hall  or 
audience  chamber,  which  was  lined  through- 
I-IO.-U.  H. 


out  with  sculptured  slabs  illustrating  the 
king's  various  deeds,  and  which  contained 
at  the  eastern  end  a  raised  stone  platform 
cut  into  steps  or  stages,  which  La>-ard  be- 
lieves was  designed  to  sup])ort  the  monarch's 
carved  throne.  A  grand  jwrtal  in  the 
southern  wall  of  the  chamber,  guarded  on 
either  side  by  .sculptured  representations  of 
winged  man-headed  bulls  carved  out  of  yel- 
low limestone,  opened  the  way  into  a  .second 
hall  much  smaller  than  the  first,  and  with 
less  variety  of  ornament.  This  .second  hall 
was  about  one  hundred  feet  long  by  twenty- 
five  broad,  and  all  the  slabs  which  adorned 
it  were  ornamented  with  colossal  eagle- 
headed  figures  in  pairs,  facing  one  another 
and  separated  by  the  sacred  tree.  This 
second  hall  was  connedled  with  the  central 
court  by  an  elegant  gateway  towards  the 
south,  and  communicated  likewise  with  a 
third  hall  towards  the  east.  This  third  hall 
was  one  of  the  most  remarkal)le  apartments 
of  the  palace,  and  was  better  proportioned 
than  most  of  the  others,  being  about  ninety 
feet  long  by  twenty -six  wide.  It  ran  along 
the  eastern  side  of  the  great  court,  with 
which  it  was  connecfted  bj-  two  gatewaj'S, 
and  on  the  inside  it  was  ornamented  with 
more  elaborately-finished  sculptures  than 
any  other  apartment  in  the  palace.  Back 
of  this  eastern  hall  was  another  hall  open- 
ing into  it,  somewhat  longer,  but  only 
twelve  feet  broad;  and  this  led  to  five  .small 
chambers,  \\hich  here  bounded  the  palace. 
South  of  the  great  court  were  also  two  halls 
communicating  with  each  other,  but  these 
were  smaller  than  those  on  the  north  and 
west,  and  were  less  profusely  adorned.  Mr. 
Layard  believes  that  there  were  also  two  or 
three  halls  on  the  west  side  of  the  court  to- 
ward the  ri\^er.  Nearly  everj-  hall  had  one 
or  two  .small  chambers  adjoining  it,  which 
were  generally  at  the  ends  of  the  halls,  and 
connnunicated  with  them  by  large  doorways. 
The  grand  halls  of  this  palace,  so  narrow 
for  their  length,  were  decorated  on  all  sides, 
first  with  ,scul])tures  as  high  as  nine  or  ten 
feet,  and  then  with  enameled  bricks  or  pat- 
terns painted  in  frescoes  to  the  height  of 
seven  or  eight  feet  more.     The  rooms  were 


154 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  Y.—ASS  YRIA. 


sixteen  or  eighteen  feet  high.  The  square 
chambers  had  no  other  embeUishnients  than 
inscribed  alabaster  slabs. 

Asshur-izir-pal's  .sculptures  displaj'  great 
boldness,  force  and  spirit,  but  are  usually 
clumsily  drawn  and  roughly  executed.  As- 
syrian mimetic  art  suddenly  sprung  up  at 
this  period,  the  only  specimens  more  ancient 
than  this  monarch  being  the  rock-tablet  of 
Tiglath-Pileser  I.,  already  referred  to,  and 
the  mutilated  female  statue  brought  from 
Koyunjik  to  the  British  Museum  and  in- 
scribed with  the  name  of  Asshur-bil-kala, 
the  son  and  successor  of  Tiglath-Pileser  I. 
As.shur-izir-pal's  ornamentation  was  his  own 
invention.  Not  a  solitary  fragment  of  a 
sculptured  slab  has  been  found  about  the 
mounds  of  Kileh-Sherghat,  while  bricks 
have  been  found  in  abundance.  This  mon- 
arch was  the  first  to  use  bas-reliefs  on  a 
large  scale  for  architecftural  ornamentation, 
and  to  employ  them  to  illustrate  the  history 
of  the  monarch.  This  king  likewise  adorned 
his  edifices  by  means  of  enameled  bricks 
and  painted  frescoes  upon  plaster. 

Asshur-izir-pal's  .sculptures  attest  the  sur- 
prising advance  made  in  manufadlures  by 
the  Assyrians  at  this  early  period.  The 
metallurgy  of  the  time  is  represented  by 
swords,  sword-sheaths,  daggers,  earrings, 
necklaces,  armlets  and  bracelets.  The  char- 
iots, the  harness  of  the  horses,  and  the  em- 
broidery which  adorned  the  robes,  further 
attest  the  mechanical  .skill  of  the  Assyrians 
in  the  age  of  this  famous  king.  The  sculp- 
tures bear  testimony  to  the  fa(5l  that  this 
ancient  people  at  this  early  day  already  rev- 
eled in  luxury,  and  that  in  the  useful  arts, 
in  dress,  furniture,  jewelry,  etc.,  they  were 
not  far  behind  the  modems. 

Besides  the  splendid  palace  which  he 
eredled  at  Calah,  Asshur-izir-pal  built  many 
temples,  the  most  important  of  which  have 
already  been  described.  They  occupied  the 
northwestern  corner  of  the  Nimrud  plat- 
form, and  consisted  of  two  structures;  one 
precisely  at  the  corner,  embracing  the  higher 
tower,  or  ziggurat,  which  stood  out  as  a  cor- 
ner buttress  from  the  great  mound,  and  a 
shrine  with  chambers  at  the  tower's  base  ; 


the  other,  a  little  farther  to  the  east,  compris- 
ing a  shrine  and  chambers  without  a  tower. 
The  tower  of  the  first  strudlure  was  partly 
built  by  A.sshur-izir-pars  son  and  successor, 
Shalmaneser  II.  These  temples  were  highly 
adorned  with  embellishments,  both  inter- 
nally and  externalljf;  and  in  front  of  the 
larger  one  was  an  ere(5lion  indicating  that 
the  Assyrian  kings  received  divine  honors 
from  their  subjedls.  On  a  plain  square 
pedestal  two  feet  high  was  raised  a  solid 
limestone  block  cut  in  the  form  of  an  arched 
frame,  within  which  was  carved  a  figure  of 
the  king  in  sacerdotal  costume,  with  the 
sacred  collar  encircling  his  neck,  and  the 
five  chief  divine  symbols  represented  above 
his  head.  In  front  of  this  figure  was  a  tri- 
angular altar  with  a  circular  top,  resembling 
the  Grecian  tripod.  A  stele  of  Asshur-izir- 
pal,  re.sembling  the  figure  just  described,  has 
been  brought  to  England  from  Kurkh,  near 
Diarbekr,  and  is  now  in  the  British  Museum. 

Asshur-izir-pal  built  a  temple  at  Nineveh, 
which  was  dedicated  to  the  goddess  Beltis. 
A  white  stone  obelisk,  set  up  as  a  memorial 
of  his  reign,  is  now  in  the  British  Museum. 
The  sculptures  and  inscriptions  which  com- 
memorated his  military  and  hunting  exploits, 
and  which  covered  the  four  sides  of  this 
monument,  are  now  almost  obliterated.  The 
obelisk  is  a  monolith,  twelve  or  thirteen  feet 
high,  and  two  feet  wide  on  the  broader  side 
of  the  ba.se  and  less  than  fourteen  inches  on 
the  narrower  side.  It  tapers  slightly  and  is 
crowned  at  the  top  by  three  steps  or  gra- 
dines.  Fragments  of  two  other  obelisks 
erecfled  by  this  great  monarch  were  discovered 
at  Koyunjik  by  Mr.  lyoftus,  and  are  likewise 
now  in  the  British  Museum.  One  of  these, 
in  white  stone,  had  sculptures  on  one  side 
only,  being  mostly  covered  by  an  in.scription 
recording  his  hunting  exploits  in  vSyria  and 
his  repairs  of  the  city  of  Asshur.  The  other, 
in  black  basalt,  had  sculptures  on  every  side 
representing  the  great  king  receiving  tribute- 
bearers. 

Asshur-izir-pal  construdled  a  tuiuiel  and 
canal  by  which  the  water  of  the  Greater 
Zab  was  brought  to  Calah.  He  records  this 
fadl  in  his  annals,  and   Sennacherib,   who 


/V  V,  /  TICA  I.    HIS  T(  >  A'  > : 


155 


repaired  tlie  tuinicl  two  centuries  later,  set 
up  therein  a  tablet  with  an  inscription  com- 
memorating Asshur-izir-pal  as  its  author.- 

Asshur-izir-pal's  favorite  capital  was  Ca- 
lah,  although  he  beautified  Asshur,  the  old 
capital,  and  the  rising  city  of  Nineveh.  The 
continual  spread  of  the  Assyrian  dominion 
northward  necessitated  the  removal  of  the 
capital  to  a  more  central  point  than  A.sshur; 
and  for  that  rea.son  Calah,  which  was  forty 
miles  farther  north,  on  the  opposite  or  east 
side  of  the  Tigris,  was  selected  for  the  seat 
of  government.  Calah,  located  in  the  fer- 
tile and  healthy  region  of  Adiabene,  near 
the  junction  of  the  Greater  Zab  with  the 
Tigris,  was  strongly  protected  b\'  nature, 
being  defended  on  either  side  by  a  deep  river. 
The  new  capital  rapidly  grew  to  great- 
ness, and  palace  after  palace  rose  on  its  high 
platform,  profuseh'  embellished  with  carved 
woodwork,  gilding,  painting,  sculpture  and 
enamel;  while  stone  lions,  sphinxes,  obelisks, 
shrines  and  temple-towers  also  adorned  the 
scene.  The  lofty  ziggurat  attached  to  the 
temple  of  Nin  stood  forth  preeminent  amid 
the  varied  mass  of  royal  palaces  and  sacred 
temples,  giving  unity  to  the  whole. 

After  his  glorious  reign  of  twenty-five 
3'ears,  Asshur-izir-pal — who  styled  him.self 
' '  The  conqueror  from  the  upper  passage  of 
the  Tigris  to  Lebanon  and  the  Great  Sea, 
who  has  reduced  under  his  authoritj-  all 
countries  from  the  rising  of  the  sun  to  the 
going  down  of  the  same" — died  at  no  ad- 
vanced age,  and  was  succeeded  on  the  throne 
by  his  son,  Shalmaneser  II. 

Shalmane.ser  II.  inherited  the  warlike 
spirit  and  genius  of  his  illustrious  father; 
and  during  his  reign  of  thirty-five  years, 
from  B.  C.  858  to  B.  C.  823,  he  conducted 
twenty-three  military'  expeditions  in  person, 
and  entrusted  four  others  to  a  favorite  gen- 
eral. His  twenty-three  expeditions  were 
undertaken  during  the  first  twenty-seven 
years  of  his  reign,  and  were  diredled 
against  the  territories  of  neighboring  peoples. 
Babjdonia,  Chaldcea,  Media,  the  Zimri,  Ar- 
menia, Upper  Mesopotamia,  the  country  of 
the  Upper  Tigris,  the  Hittites,  the  Patena, 
the  Tibareni.  the  Hamathites,  and  the  Syr- 


ians of  Damascus,  were  attacked  by  the  ar- 
mies of  vShalmaneser  II. ,  their  hosts  defeated, 
their  cities  be.sieged  and  taken,  their  kings 
reduced  to  submission  and  forced  to  pay  tri- 
bute. 

Shalmaneser  II.  took  tribute  from  the  Phoe- 
nician cities  of  Tyre,  Sidon  and  Byblus; 
from  the  T.sukhi,  or  Shnhites;  from  the  peo- 
ple of  Muzr,  or  Musr;  from  the  Bartsu,  or 
Partsu  (believed  to  be  the  Persians),  and 
from  the  Israelites.  He  thus  traversed  the 
entire  region  from  the  Persian  Gulf  on  the 
south  to  the  Niphates  mountains  upon  the 
north,  and  from  the  Zagros  range  on  the 
east  to  the  Mediterranean  sea  on  the  west. 
Over  this  whole  A'ast  domain  he  made  his 
power  felt,  while  his  influence  extended  be- 
yond its  limits,  where  the  nations  feared  and 
respected  him  and  willingly  sought  his  favor 
bj'  placing  themselves  under  his  protecftion. 
In  the  closing  years  of  his  reign  he  deputed 
the  command  of  his  armies  to  his  favorite 
general,  Daj^an- Asshur,  in  whom  he  reposed 
great  confidence.  Dayan-Asshur  held  an 
important  office  in  the  fifth  year  of  Shal- 
maneser's  reign;  and  in  the  twenty-seventh, 
twentj'-eighth,  thirtieth,  and  thirty-first  he 
was  sent  with  an  army  against  the  Anne- 
nians,  the  rebellious  Patena,  and  the  people 
of  the  region  included  in  modem  Kurdistan. 
In  his  twenty-ninth  year  the  king  himself 
led  an  expedition  into  Khirki,  the  Naphates 
districft,  where  he  "overturned,  beat  to 
pieces,  and  consumed  with  fire  the  towns, 
swept  the  country  with  his  troops,  and  im- 
pressed on  the  inhabitants  the  fear  of  his 
presence." 

Shalmaneser's  most  interesting  campaigns 
are  those  of  the  sixth,  eighth,  ninth,  elev- 
enth, fourteenth,  eighteenth  and  twenty-first 
years  of  his  reign.  Two  of  these  campaigns 
were  direcfted  against  Babylonia,  three 
against  Een-hadad  of  Damascus,  and  two 
against  Kha/.ail  (Hazael)  of  Dama.scus. 

In  his  eighth  j-ear,  while  Babylonia  was 
rent  by  a  civil  war  between  King  Merodach- 
sum-adin  and  his  younger  brother,  Mero- 
dach-bel-usati,  Shalmane.ser  II.  invaded  that 
kingdom  ostensibly  to  aid  its  legitimate  sov- 
ereign, but  reall)-  for  his  own  aggrandize- 


156 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


ment.  He  at  once  seized  several  Babylonian 
towns,  and  in  the  following  year  he  defeated 
and  killed  the  pretender  to  the  Babylonian 
crown,  entered  Babylon  and  invaded  Chal- 
daea,  the  countiy  along  the  Persian  Gulf, 
then  independent  of  Babylon,  and  compelled 
its  kings  to  become  his  tributaries.  He  in- 
forms us  in  his  inscriptions  that  ' '  the  power 
of  his  army  struck  terror  as  far  as  the  sea." 

The  wars  of  Shalmaneser  II.  in  Southern 
Syria  began  in  the  ninth  year  of  his  reign. 
He  had  extended  his  dominion  in  Northern 
Syria  over  the  Patena  and  most  of  the 
Northern  Hittites.  Alarmed  at  the  rapid 
growth  of  the  Assyrian  power,  Ben-hadad, 
King  of  Damascus;  Tsakhulena,  King  of 
Hamatli;  Ahab,  King  of  Israel;  the  kings  of 
the  southern  Hittites;  the  kings  of  the  Phoe- 
nician cities  upon  the  coast,  and  others, 
formed  an  alliance,  but  their  combined  forces 
were  defeated  by  the  King  of  Assyria,  with 
the  loss  of  twenty  thousand  men  killed  in 
battle,  while  many  chariots  and  much  war 
material  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  vicftori- 
oua  Assyrians. 

Five  years  later,  in  the  eleventh  year  of  his 
reign,  Shalmaneser  II.  again  took  the  field 
against  Hamatli  and  the  Southern  Hittites. 
Suddenly  invading  their  territories,  he  took 
many  towns  without  resist- 
ance ;  but  Ben-hadad  of  Da- 
mascus joined  the  Hittites, 
and  though  the  allies  were 
again  defeated  by  the  Assyrian 
monarch,  the  latter  did  not 
succeed  in  extending  his  sway 
over  Southern  Syria.  Three 
years  afterward,  Shalmaneser 
II.  again  attempted  the  con- 
quest of  Southern  Syria.  Col- 
ledling  his  people  "in  multi- 
tudes that  were  not  to  be 
counted,"  he  crossed  the  Eu- 
phrates with  an  anny  of  more 
than  a  hundred  thousand  men 
and  marched  southwards.  This  time  he 
gained  a  decisive  vicflon,'  over  the  allied 
armies  of  Ben-hadad  of  Dama.scus,  the 
Hamathites  and  the  Hittites,  who  fled  in 
dismay,   losing   many  chariots    and   imple- 


ments of  war.  The  coalition  at  once  fell  to 
pieces,  and  the  Hamathites  and  Hittites 
submitted  to  the  conqueror's  3-oke,  Damas- 
cus being  deserted  by  her  allies. 

The  next  year  Shalmaneser  II.  advanced 
against  the  Syrians  of  Damascus,  who  were 
strongly  posted  in  the  Anti-Lebanon  fast 
nesses,  and  w^ere  under  the  leadership  of 
their  new  king,  Hazael,  who  had  treacher- 
ously murdered  Ben-hadad.  Hazael  raised 
an  immense  army,  including  over  eleven 
hundred  chariots,  and  took  a  strong  position 
in  the  mountain  range  dividing  the  king- 
doms of  Damascus  and  Hamath,  where  he 
was  attacked  and  utterly  defeated  by  the 
Assyrian  king,  losing  sixteen  thousand  men, 
eleven  hundred  and  twenty-one  chariots,  a 
large  amount  of  war  material  and  his  camp. 
This  blow  completely  broke  the  power  of 
Damascus,  and  three  years  later  Hazael 
made  no  resistance  when  Shalrnaneser  II. 
again  invaded  Syria  and  took  and  plundered 
his  towns.  In  his  inscription,  Shalmaneser 
II.  .says:  "I  went  to  the  towns  of  Hazael 
of  Damascus,  and  took  part  of  his  provis- 
ions." He  next  saj's:  "  I  received  the  trib- 
utes of  Tyre,  Sidon  and  Byblus."  Jehu, 
King  of  Israel — ".son  of  Omri,"  as  he  is 
called   in  the   Assyrian   inscription — sent  a 


JEHU'S    EMUAbSV    BEFORE   SHALMANESER   II. 

quantity  of  gold  and  silver,  in  bullion  and 
manufacftured  articles,  as  tributes  to  the 
Assyrian  monarch.  Sculptures  at  Nimmd 
represent  the  Israelitish  ambassadors  pre- 
senting this  tribute  to  Shalmaneser  II.,  the 


POLITICAL    I//S  7Y)A' ) '. 


157 


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MSU' 


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ftEL  rALA  S  DE   ^E    POD  IX  S  '« 


yilfliililllllllllH^ll^'lliii^'i'li^^'lll|M^lllln^ll!^ll 


l'|li'|l'''l'i"'''"'''i"''':'lMi;i:l.' 


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THE    BLACK    CHiKUSK    Ol-     SHALMANESER    II. 


158 


ANCIENT   HISTOR Y.— ASSYRIA. 


articles  appearing'  carried  in  the  hands  or  on 
the  shoulders  of  the  envoys." 

Like  his  distinguished  father,  Shalman- 
eser  II.  had  great  taste  for  architecture  and 
the  other  arts.  He  completed  the  :-iggurat 
of  the  great  temple  of  Nin  at  Calah,  which 
his  father  had  commenced.  He  also  built  a 
more  splendid  palace  than  the  one  eredled 
by  his  father  on  the  same  lofty  platform  of 
that  city,  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards 
from  the  former  palace.  This  is  known  as 
the  ' '  Central  Palace ' '  of  the  Nimrud  plat- 
form, and  was  disco\'ered  by  Mr.  Layard  on 
his  first  expedition.  The  ruined  condition 
of  this  magnificent  edifice  rendered  it  impos- 
sible for  its  modern  discoverer  to  obtain  a 
clear  idea  of  its  ornamentation.  Two  mass- 
ive winged  man-headed  bulls  partiallj^  de- 
stroyed, in  the  grand  portals  of  this  great 
strudture,  and  the  sculptured  fragments  of 
bas-reliefs,  which  must  have  adorned  its 
walls,  illustrate  its  points  of  similarity  to 
Asshur-izir-pal's  great  edifice.  The  sculp- 
tures of  Shalmaneser's  palace  were  on  a 
grander  scale  and  more  mythological  than 
tho.se  of  his  father's  building. 

A  famous  monument  of  Shalmancser  II. 
is  an  obelisk  in  black  marble,  in  shape  and 
general  arrangement  resembling  that  of  his 
father  already  described,  but  of  a  handsomer 
and  better  material.  This  obelisk  was  dis- 
covered lying  prostrate  under  the  rubbish 
covering  Shalmaneser's  palace.  It  contained 
ba.s-reliefs  in  twenty  compartments,  five  on 
each  of  its  four  sides,  the  space  about  them 
being  covered  with  minute  cuneiform  in- 
scriptions; the  whole  in  an  excellent  state 
of  preservation.  It  is  somewhat  smaller 
than  Asshur-izir-pal's  obelisk,  being  only 
seven  feet  high  and  twenty-two  inches  on 
its  broad  face.  Its  proportions  make  it  more 
solid-looking  and  taper  less  than  the  former 
obelisk.  The  bas-reliefs  represent  Shalman- 
eser  II.,  accompanied  by  his  vizier  and  other 
chief  officers,  receiving  tribute  from  five 
nations,  whose  envoys  are  ushered  into  the 
royal  presence  by  officials  of  the  court,  and 
prostrate  themselves  at  the  feet  of  the  Great 
King  before  they  present  their  offerings. 
The  gifts  are  mostly  articles  of  gold,  silver, 


copper  bars  and  cubes,  goblets,  elephants' 
tusks,  tissues,  etc.,  and  are  carried  in  the 
hand;  but  there  are  also  animals,  such  as 
horses,  camels,  monkeys  and  baboons  of  va- 
rious types,  stags,  lions,  wild  bulls,  ante- 
lopes, and  the  rhinoceros  and  elephant. 
As  already  related,  the  Israelites  are  one  of 
the  nations  offering  tribute.  The  others 
will  now  be  noticed.  The  people  of  Kirzan, 
a  country  adjoining  Armenia,  present  gold, 
silver,  copper,  horses  and  camels,  and  occupy 
the  four  highest  compartments  with  nine 
envoys.  The  Muzri,  or  people  of  Muzr,  or 
Musr,  as  we  have  obser\-ed,  almost  in  the 
same  region,  bring  various  wild  animals  and 
fill  the  four  central  compartments  with  six 
envoys.  The  Tsukhi,  or  Shuhites,  from  the 
Euphrates,  are  represented  h\  thirteen  en- 
voys, bringing  two  lions,  a  stag  and  various 
precious  objecfts,  such  as  metal  bars,  ele- 
phant tusks,  and  shawls  or  tissues;  and  are 
given  four  compartments  below  the  Muzri. 
The  Patena,  from  the  Orontes,  fill  three  of 
the  lowest  compartments,  with  a  train  of 
twelve  envoys  bearing  gifts  similar  to  those 
of  the  Israelites.  A  stele  of  Shalmaneser  II. , 
closely  resembling  those  of  his  father,  was 
brought  to  the  British  Museum  from  Kurkh 
in  1S63. 

Calah.  where  he  and  his  father  built  their 
great  palaces,  was  the  usual  capital  of  Shal- 
maneser II. ;  but  he  sometimes  held  his  court 
in  the  new  city  of  Nineveh,  and  also  in  the 
old  capital,  Asshur.  At  the  latter  place 
he  left  a  monument  in  the  .shape  of  a  stone 
statue  representing  a  king  seated,  which 
was  found  by  Mr.  Layard  in  a  nuitilated 
condition.  In  his  later  years  Shalmaneser 
II.  was  troubled  by  a  dangerous  rebellion  of 
his  eldest  son,  the  heir  apparent  to  the  crown, 
Asshur-danin-pal.  The  rebellious  prince 
had  a  powerful  popular  support,  and  was 
proclaimed  king  at  Asshur,  at  Arbela  in  the 
Zab  region,  at  Amidi  on  the  Upper  Tigris, 
at  Tel-Apni  near  the  site  of  Orfa,  and  in 
more  than  a  .score  of  other  fortified  places. 
The  aged  monarch  called  his  second  son, 
Shamas-Vul,  to  the  command  of  the  loyal 
troops,  and  this  prince  reduced  the  rebellious 
cities   in   succession   and   soon    completely 


PL  )l.rriCAL    HIS  71  >A' }  • 


159 


crushed  the  revolt.  Asshur-danin-pal,  the 
rebellious  crown-prince,  forfeited  his  claims 
to  the  crown  by  his  treason,  and  is  supposed 
to  have  been  put  to  death;  while  his  younger 
brother  and  conqueror,  Shamas-Vul,  became 
the  heir  to  his  father's  kingdom,  to  which 
he  shortly'  afterwards  succeeded,  upon  Shal- 
maneser's  death,  in  B.  C.  823,  after  an  a(5live 
and  glorious  reign  of  thirty-five  years. 

Shamas-Vul  II.  reigned  thirteen  years, 
from  B.  C.  823  to  B.  C.  810.  We  will  now 
briefly  notice  the  extent  of  the  Assyrian  do- 
minion at  his  accession.  Since  the  time  of 
Tiglath-Pileser  I.  the  limits  of  the  A.ssyrian 
Empire  had  been  extended  in  different  direc- 
tions, but  mainly  toward  the  west  and  the 
north-west.  In  this  diredlion  the  Assyrian 
limits  had  been  pushed  bej'ond  the  Euphrates 
over  all  Northern  Syna,  over  Phoenicia,  Ha- 


beyond  Amanus,  the  region  between  the 
two  belonging  to  theTibareni  (Tubal),  who 
had  submitted  as  tributaries.  The  northern 
limits  were  the  Niphates  range —  "the  high 
grounds  over  the  affluents  of  the  Tigris  and 
the  Euphrates" — where  Shalmaneser  II., 
setup  "an  image  of  his  majesty."  The 
eastern  frontier  was  in  the  central  Zagro.s 
region,  the  tra<5l  between  the  Lower  Zab  and 
Holwan,  then  called  Hupuska.  On  the 
south  the  Assyrian  kingdom  was  still 
bounded  by  the  territories  of  the  Baby- 
lonians and  Chaldaeans,  who  j'et  remained 
unconquered. 

These  conquests  and  changes,  which  con- 
verted Assyria's  former  enemies  into  sub- 
jedts,  brought  the  empire  into  contadl  with 
new  enemies  on  her  western,  northern  and 
eastern  sides.      In    the   west   the  Assvrians 


Ab.SVRIANS    GLIiNi;    Tu    H.\TT1.1'.. 


math,  and  Samaria,  or  the  Israelite  kingdom. 
These  countries  were  not,  however,  reduced 
to  the  condition  of  provinces;  they  still  re- 
mained under  their  own  native  kings,  and 
retained  their  administration  and  laws  ;  but 
they  were  virtually  subje(5l  to  Assyria,  as 
they  acknowledged  the  suzerainty  of  the 
Assyrian  monarch,  paid  him  an  annual  trib- 
ute, and  allowed  his  armies  a  free  passage 
through  their  territories.  On  the  west  the 
Assj'rian  Empire  extended  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean, from  the  Gulf  of  Iskanderun  to 
Cape  Camiel  or  to  Joppa.  The  north-western 
boundary-  was  the  Taurus  mountain  range 


came  in  collision  with  the  Syrians  of  Damas- 
cus, and  with  the  kingdom  of  Judah, 
through  their  tributary',  Samaria,  or  Israel. 
In  the  north-west  they  found  new  foes  in 
the  Ouin,  or  Coans,  who  occupied  the 
farther  side  of  Amanus,  near  the  Tibareni, 
in  a  portion  of  what  was  subsequenth-  called 
Cilicia,  and  the  Cilicians  also,  who  are  now 
first  mentioned.  The  Moschi  had  migrated 
from  this  section.  On  the  north  the  Anne- 
nians  were  at  this  time  Assyria's  onlj-  neigh- 
bors. Toward  the  east  were  the  Manual,  or 
Minni,  about  Lake  T 'nnniyeh;  the  Kharkhar, 
in   the    Van   region  and   in    North-westera 


i6o 


ANCIENT  HISrOR Y.— ASSYRIA. 


Kurdistan;  the  Bartsu,  or  Persians,  then  in 
South-eastern  Armenia;  the  Mada,  or  Medes, 
east  of  the  Zagros;  and  the  Tsimri,  or  Zimri, 
in  ITpper  Luristan.  These  new  neighbors 
and  enemies  were  all  weak,  and  no  power- 
fully-organized monarchy  at  this  time  ex- 
isted to  contest  with  Assyria  the  dominion 
of  Western  Asia.  The  Medes  and  Persians, 
afterwards  so  celebrated  as  powerful  nations, 
at  this  period  were  no  more  important  than 
the  other  insignificant  tribes  and  nations 
upon  the  Assyrian  borders.  Neither  of  these 
kindred  Ar>^an  peoples  had  yet  a  capital 
cit}-,  neither  was  united  under  one  sovereign, 
but  each  was  divided  into  many  tribes, 
headed  by  chiefs,  and  dispersed  in  scattered 
and  defenseless  towns  and  villages.  They 
were  thus  in  the  same  condition  as  the  Nairi, 
the  Qummukh,  the  Patena,  the  Hittites  and 
other  frontier  nationalities  whose  compara- 
tive weakness  Assyria  had  demonstrated  to 
the  world  in  a  long  course  of  wars  in  which 
she  had  uniformly  triumphed. 

Like  his  father,  Shalmaneser  II. ,  Shamas- 
Vul  II.  resided  principally  at  Calah,  where 
he,  like  his  father  and  grandfather,  set  up 
an  obelisk,  or  rather  a  stele,  to  commemo- 
rate his  exploits.  This  monument,  covered 
on  three  sides  with  an  inscription  in  the 
hieratic,  or  cursive  characfter,  contains  an 
opening  invocation  to  the  god  Nin,  con- 
ceived in  the  usual  terms,  the  king's  gene- 
alogy and  titles,  an  account  of  Asshur-da- 
nin-pal's  rebellion  and  its  suppression,  and 
Shamas-Vul's  own  annals  for  the  first  four 
years  of  his  reign.  These  infonn  us  that 
he  exhibited  the  same  acflive  and  energetic 
spirit  as  his  father  and  grandfather,  con- 
ducting campaigns  against  the  Nairi  on  the 
north,  Media  and  Arazias  on  the  east,  and 
Bab}lonia  on  the  south.  The  people  of 
Hupuska,  the  Minni,  and  the  Bartsu,  or 
Persians,  paid  him  tribute. 

The  fourth  campaign  of  Shamas-Vul  II. 
was  against  Babylonia,  which  country  he 
entered  from  the  north-east.  He  took  a 
strongly-fortified  position  of  the  Babj-lonians 
after  a  vigorous  siege,  eighteen  thousand  of 
the  garrison  l)eing  .slain,  and  three  thousand 
made  prisoners,   while  the  city  was  plun- 


dered and  burned,  and  the  Assyrian  mon- 
arch went  in  hot  pursuit  of  the  flying  foe. 
Shamas-Vul  II.  next  defeated  the  Babylon- 
ian king,  Merodach-belatzu-ikbi,  at  the 
head  of  an  allied  host  of  Babylonians,  Ara- 
maeans, or  Syrians,  and  Zimri,  on  the  river 
Daban;  the  allies  losing  five  thousand  killed, 
two  thousand  made  prisoners,  one  hundred 
chariots,  two  hundred  tents  and  the  Baby- 
lonian royal  standard  and  pavilion.  The 
annals  of  Shamas-Vul  II.  here  abruptly  ter- 
minate; but  it  appears  from  other  circum- 
stances that  from  this  time,  for  over  half  a 
century-.  Babylonia,  which  had  for  a  long 
time  been  a  separate  and  independent  king- 
dom, was  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a 
tributan,-. 

The  stele  of  Shamas-Vul  II.  contains  one 
allusion  to  a  hunting  exploit,  stating  that  he 
killed  se\-eral  wild  bulls  at  the  foot  of  the 
Zagros,  while  leading  his  expedition  against 
Babylonia.  His  stele  consists  of  a  single 
figure  in  relief,  representing  the  king  in  his 
priestly  dress,  wearing  the  sacred  symbols 
round  his  neck,  standing  with  his  right  arm 
upraised,  and  enclosed  in  the  usual  arched 
frame.  This  figure  is  somewhat  larger  than 
life,  and  is  cut  on  a  single  solid  stone,  and 
then  set  on  a  larger  block  serving  for  a  ped- 
estal. The  figure  closely  re.sembles  that  of 
Asshur-izir-pal,  already  described. 

Shamus-Vul  II.,  upon  his  death,  in  B.  C. 
8 ID,  was  succeeded  on  the  Assyrian  throne  by 
his  son  VuL-LUSH  III.,  who  reigned  twenty- 
nine  years,  from  B.  C.  8io  to  B.  C.  781. 
The  .scant}'  memorials  of  this  king  consist 
of  two  slabs  found  at  Nimrud,  of  a  short 
dedicatory  inscription  on  duplicate  statues 
of  the  god  Nebo,  brought  from  the  same 
place,  of  some  brick  inscriptions  from  the 
Nebbi-Yunus  mound  of  Nineveh,  and  of 
short  notices  of  the  regions  in  which  he 
conducted  campaigns,  contained  in  one  copy 
of  the  Assyrian  Canon. 

Vul-lush  III.  was  as  warlike  as  any  of  his 
predecessors,  and  extended  the  Assyrian  do- 
minion in  every  direction.  He  led  seven 
expeditions  across  the  Zagros  mountains  into 
Media,  two  into  the  Van  region,  and  three 
into  Syria.     He    says    that    in  one   of  his 


POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


i6r 


Syrian  expeditions  he  reduced  Damascus, 
whose  kings  had  defied  the  repeated  at- 
tacks of  Shahnaneser  II.  He  counts  as 
his  tributaries  in  this  region,  besides  Da- 
mascus, the  Phoenician  cities  of  Tyre  and 
Sidon,  and  the  countries  of  Khumri,  or  Sa- 
maria; Palestine,  or  Philistia;  and  Hudxnn 
( Edom,  or  Idum^a ).  On  the  north  he 
received  tokens  of  submission  from  the 
Nairi,  the  Minni,  the  Mada,  or  Medes, 
and  the  Bartsu,  or  Persians.  On  the  south 
he  ruled  Babj'lonia  like  a  so\^ereign,  re- 
ceived homage  from  the  Chaldjeans,  and 
in  the  great  cities  of  Babylon,  Borsippa  and 
Cutha,  or  Tiggaba,  he  was  permitted  to  sacri- 
fice to  the  gods  Bel,  Nebo  and  Nergal.  In 
one  place  he  styles  himself  "the  king  to 
whose  son  Asshur,  the  chief  of  the  gods,  has 
granted  the  kingdom  of  Babylon : ' '  from 
which  it  has  been  inferred  that  he  appointed 
his  own  son  viceroy  of  Babylon. 

Thus,  by  the  time  of  \'ul-lush  III.,  early 
in  the  eighth  century  before  Christ,  Assyria 
was  master  of  Babylonia  in  the  south,  and 
of  Philistia  and  Edom  in  the  west.  Her  do- 
minion thus  skirted  the  Persian  Gulf  on  the 
one  hand  and  came  into  conta(5l  with  Egj-pt 
on  the  other.  At  the  same  time  she  re- 
ceived the  submission  of  some  of  the  Median 
tribes  on  the  east;  and  held  Southern  Arme- 
nia, from  Lake  \'an  to  the  sources  of  the 
Tigris,  on  the  north.  She  was  in  possession 
of  all  Northren  Sj^ria,  including  Comma- 
gene  and  Amanus,  and  had  tributaries  be- 
yond that  mountain  range.  She  ruled  su- 
preme over  the  entire  Syrian  coast  from  Issus 
to  Gaza;  and  her  sway  was  acknowledged 
bj-  all  the  tribes  and  kingdoms  between  the 
Mediterranean  coast  and  the  Syrian  desert, 
such  as  the  Phoenicians,  the  Hamathites, 
the  Patena,  the  Hittites,  the  Syrians  of  Da- 
mascus, the  Israelites,  or  Samarians,  and 
the  Edomites,  or  Idumseans.  In  the  east 
she  had  .subjugated  nearlj-  the  whole  region 
of  the  Zagros,  and  had  tributaries  in  the 
highlands  on  the  east  side  of  that  range. 
On  th^  south  she  had  either  absorbed  Babj-- 
lonia,  or  made  her  influence  supreme  in  that 
kingdom.  Although  she  had  not  attained 
the  highest  pinnacle  of  her  greatness  until 


a  centur\-  later,  she  was  already,  as  described 
by  the  Hebrew  prophet  Ezekiel,  "a  cedar 
of  Lebanon,"  who.se  "height  was  exalted 
above  all  the  trees  of  the  field;  and  his 
boughs  were  multiplied,  and  his  branches 
became  long,"  and  "under  his  shadow 
dwelt  great  nations." 

Vul-lush  III.  calls  himself  the  "restorer 
of  noble  buildings  which  had  gone  to  de- 
cay." On  the  Nimrud  mound,  between  the 
north-western  and  south-western  palaces,  are 
chambers  built  by  him,  and  on  the  Nebbi- 
Yunus  mound  of  Nineveh  are  the  ruins  of 
a  palace  erecled  bj-  him.  The  walls  of  the 
Nimrud  chambers  were  plastered,  and  then 
painted  in  fresco  with  patterns  of  winged 
bulls,  zigzags,  squares,  circles,  etc.  The 
superstitious  regard  of  the  nati\-es  for  the 
supposed  tomb  of  the  prophet  Jonah  has 
thus  far  thwarted  all  efforts  of  Europeans  to 
explore  the  Nebbi-Yunus  palace. 

Sir  Henr\-  Rawlinson  disco^•ered  two  rude 
statues  of  the  god  Nebo  in  a  temple  at  Nim- 
rud dedicated  to  that  deitj-  by  Vul-lush  III., 
along  with  four  colossal  statues  of  the  same 
god,  and  two  others  resembling  those  now 
in  the  British  Museum.  These  statues  dis- 
play no  artistic  merit,  as  Assyrian  sculptors 
were  trammeled  by  precedent  and  conven- 
tional rules  in  religious  subjects,  and  in  rep- 
resentations of  kings  and  nobles,  being  thus 
limited  by  law  or  custom  to  certain  ancient 
forms  and  modes  of  expression,  which  we 
see  repeated  with  uniform  monotony  through 
all  the  periods  of  Assyrian  historj-. 

These  statues  are  interesting  as  containing 
inscriptions  showing  that  they  were  offered 
to  Nebo  by  an  officer  who  was  governor  of 
Calah,  Khamida  (Amadiyeh)  and  three  other 
places  for  the  life  of  Vul-lu.sh  III.  and  of  his 
wife,  Sammuramit,  "that  the  god  might 
lengthen  the  monarch's  life,  prolong  his 
days,  increase  his  years,  and  give  j^eace  to 
his  house  and  people,  and  victory  to  his 
armies."  This  Sammuramit,  wife  of  Vul- 
lush  III.,  has  been  identified  as  the  legend- 
ary Semiramis,  whom  the  Greek  historians 
represented  as  a  woman  of  masculine  quali- 
ties, the  mightiest  queen  that  ever  reigned, 
and  whose  conquests  rivaled  or  surpassed 


l62 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


those  of  Cyrus  the  Great  or  Alexander  the 
Great.  This  Sammuramit,  or  Semiramis,  the 
Babylonian  wife  of  Vul-lush  III.,  gave  that 
king  his  title  to  the  Babylonian  dominions, 
and  reigned  jointly  with  him  both  in  Baby- 
lonia and  Assyria.  The  exaggerated  stories 
of  this  princess,  as  transmitted  to  modern 
times  through  the  accounts  of  Herodotus 
and  Ctesias,  have  been  exploded  in  the  pres- 
ent century;  the  renowned  German  histori- 
ans, Heeren  and  Niebuhr,  first  pronouncing 
the  story  of  her  conquering  career  a  myth, 
and  patient  explorers  in  the  field  of  Assyrian 
antiquity  substituting  for  the  shadowy  mar- 
vel of  Ctesias  a  very  prosaic  Assyrian  queen, 
a  very  common-place  Babylonian  princess, 
who  never  reall}'  executed  great  works  or 
performed  great  exploits. 

With  the  death  of  Vul-lu.sh  III.,  in  B.  C. 
781,  ended  the  brilliant  Calah  line  of  Assyr- 
ian sovereigns;  and  for  a  period  of  almost 
forty  years  A.ssyrian  historj-  is  again  in- 
volved in  partial  obscurit}'.  The  Ass3'rian 
Canon  informs  us  that  three  monarchs 
reigned  during  this  interval — Shalmaneser 
HI.  from  B.  C.  781  to  B.  C.  771,  Asshur- 
DAY.'i.N  III.  from  B.  C.  771  to  B.  C.  753,  and 
Asshur-lush  from  B.  C.  753  to  B.  C.  745. 
During  this  short  period  Assj-rian  conquests 
ceased,  Assyrian  glory  for  the  time  had 
pa.ssed  away,  and  a  general  decline  seems  to 
have  set  in.  None  of  these  three  kings  left 
any  important  buildings,  memorials  or 
monumental  records.  The  onward  march 
of  this  great  empire,  which  remained  un- 
checked for  over  a  century,  was  thus  brought 
to  a  .sudden  halt. 

At  this  point  there  is  an  apparent  contra- 
didlion  between  the  native  Assyrian  records 
and  the  incidental  allusions  to  their  history 
as  found  in  the  Second  Book  of  Kings.  The 
Scriptural  Pul — the  ' '  King  of  As,syria ' '  who 
came  up  against  the  land  of  Israel  and  re- 
ceived from  Menahem  a  thousand  talents  of 
silver,  "that  his  hand  might  be  with  him  to 
confirm  the  kingdom  in  his  hand" — is  not 
mentioned  in  the  Assyrian  inscriptions,  and 
is  not  named  in  the  A.ssyrian  Canon.  The 
Scrii)ture  records  would  make  Pul  the  im- 
mediate predecessor  of  Tiglath-Pileser  II.; 


as  his  expedition  against  Menahem  is  fol- 
lowed, at  most,  thirty-two  years  later,  by 
an  expedition  by  Tiglath-Pileser  II.  against 
Pekah,  King  of  Israel.  Berosus  represented 
Pul  as  a  Chaldsean  king,  whom  Polyhistor 
calls  Pulus,  and  is  believed  to  be  the  Porus 
mentioned  in  the  Canon  of  Ptolemy. 

During  this  interval  of  Assyrian  darkness 
and  decay,  under  the  first  three  successors 
of  Vul-lush  III.,  the  frontier  kingdoms  be- 
gan to  assert  their  power  and  independence. 
Babylon,  which  had  remained  under  Assyr- 
ian sway  since  its  conquest  bj-  Shamas-Vul 
II. ,  the  father  and  immediate  predecessor  of 
Vul-lush  III.,  reestablished  its  independence 
under  Nabonas.sar  in  B.  C.  747,  from  which 
point — thereafter  known  as  the  Era  of  Na- 
bonassar — the  Babylonians  thereafter  reck- 
oned time.  Enterprising  Kings  of  Israel, 
such  as  Jeroboam  II.  and  Menahem,  also 
cast  off  the  Assyrian  j'oke  and  extended 
their  own  dominions,  as  did  the  tribes  of 
Armenia  and  the  Zagros  region.  The 
reign  of  Asshur-dayan  III.  was  disturbed 
by  three  foniiidable  rebellions  in  the  heart 
of  Assyria  itself — one  at  the  city  of  Libzu, 
another  at  Arapkha,  the  chief  town  of 
Arrapachitis,  and  a  third  at  Gozan,  the 
chief  city  of  Gauzanitis,  or  Mygdonia.  The 
inscriptions  do  not  inform  us  of  the  re- 
.sults  of  these  revolts,  but  the  degenerac}-  of 
the  military  spirit,  and  the  \'oluptuous  and 
luxurious  disposition  of  the  kings,  give 
ground  for  the  belief  that  the  attempts  made 
to  subdue  the  rebels  were  failures.  Asshur- 
dayan  III.  and  Asshur-lush  spent  their 
reigns  mostly  in  inaction  and  inglorious 
ease  at  their  rich  and  luxurious  capitals. 
At  the  close  of  this  period  of  darkness  and 
decline,  Calah,  the  .second  city  of  the  king- 
dom, revolted,  and  thus  inaugurated  the 
dynastic  and  political  revolution  which 
ushered  in  the  brilliant  period  of  the  New  or 
Lower  Assyrian  Empire,  founded  by  the 
great  Tiglath-Pileser  II. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  it  was  during 
this  period  of  general  national  weakness 
and  decay,  when  an  unwarlike  sovereign 
was  reveling  in  inglorious  ease  amid  the 
luxuries  and  refinements  of  Nineveh,   and 


POLITIL  AL    JUS  Tl  >A' ) '. 


163 


when  the  Ninevites  had  abaudoued  them- 
selves to  vicious  indulgences,  that  they  were 
suddeul}-  startled  bj'  a  strange  voice  in  their 
streets  uttering  the  solemn  warning:  "Yet 
forty  days,  and  Nineveh  shall  be  over- 
thrown!" A  strange  wild  man  clad  in  a 
rude  gannent  of  skin — a  traveler  unknown 
to  the  inhabitants,  pale,  emaciated,  wearj^ — ■ 
proclaimed  in  every  quarter  of  the  great  and 
luxurious  city:  "Yet  forty  days,  and  Nin- 
eveh shall  be  overthrown!  "  Coming  as  this 
cry  did,  when  the  glory  of  Assyria  had  de- 
parted, and  when  it  had  to  defend  its  own 
existence  against  the  foes  it  had  subdued  in 
the  da>s  of  its  former  prosperity,  the  people 
were  seized  with  consternation  and  alann. 
This  dismay  invaded  the  royal  palace,  and 
his  frightened  servants  ' '  came  and  told  the 
King  of  Nineveh,"  who  then  sat  on  his 
throne  in  the  great  audience-chamber,  sur- 
rounded b}-  all  the  wealth,  luxun,-,  pomp 
and  magnificence  of  his  court.  The  mon- 
arch at  once  "arose  from  his  throne,  and 
laid  aside  his  robe  from  him,  and  covered 
himself  with  sackcloth  and  ashes."  After 
having  an  edidl  framed,  he  "caused  it  to 
be  proclaimed  and  published  through  Nin- 
eveh, by  the  decree  of  the  king  and  his  no- 
bles, saying.  Let  neither  man  nor  beast, 
herd  nor  flock,  taste  anything;  let  them  not 
feed,  nor  drink  water;  but  let  man  and  beast 
be  covered  with  sackcloth,  and  cry  mightily 
unto  God;  yea,  let  them  turn  everj'  one 
from  his  evil  way,  and  from  the  violence 
that  is  in  their  hands."  The  fast  thus  com- 
manded by  royal  authority  was  at  once  pro- 
claimed, and  the  Ninevites,  fearing  the  Di- 
vine wrath,  clothed  theni.selves  in  sackcloth 
' '  from  the  greatest  of  them  even  to  the  least 
of  them."  From  joy  and  merriment,  from 
revelry  and  feasting,  the  great  city  turned 
to  lamentation  and  mourning.  The  people 
abandoned  their  vices  and  humbled  them- 
selves; they  "  turned  from  their  evil  way," 
and  by  a  sincere  repentance  of  their  past 
sins  thej-  sought  to  avert  their  threatened 
doom.  The  haggard  and  travel-stained 
stranger  who  had  alarmed  the  inhabitants 
of  this  great  capital  and  metropolis  to  re- 
pentance,   by    announcing    to    them    their 


threatened  destrucflion,  was  the  Jewish 
prophet  Jonah.  He  sat  in  vain  outside  the 
eastern  limits  of  the  city,  waiting  to  behold 
the  destrucflion  which  he  expected  that  the 
Lord  Jehovah  would  visit  upon  the  "great 
city, ' '  which  then  is  said  to  have  had  ' '  six 
score  thousand  persons  that  could  not  dis- 
cern between  their  right  hand  and  their 
left."  The  expedted  doom  was  not  inflidled 
in  fort}^  days,  and  Nineveh  was  not  over- 
thrown until  more  than  a  century  later. 

With  TiGLATH-PiLESER  II.,  wlio  became 
King  of  A.ssyria  in  B.  C.  745,  began  theJVcw 
or  Lowe}-  Assyrian  Empire  (B.  C.  745-625) 
— the  third  and  last,  and  the  most  brilliant, 
period  of  Assyrian  history.  Tiglath-Pile.ser 
II.  was  thus  the  restorer  of  Assyrian  great- 
ness. The  circumstances  of  his  accession 
are  iniknown  to  us,  but  he  was  the  founder 
of  a  new  dynasty,  and  Rawlinson  thinks  he 
was  a  usurper,  and  places  no  reliance  upon 
the  story-  of  Bion  and  Polyhistor  that  this 
monarch  ro.se  from  the  humble  station  of  a 
vine-dresser  who  had  been  employed  in  keep- 
ing in  order  the  king's  gardens.  In  his  in- 
scriptions Tiglath-Pileser  II.  is  repeatedly- 
represented  as  speaking  of  "the  kings  his 
fathers,"  and  as  calling  the  royal  palaces  at 
Calah  "the  palaces  of  his  fathers,"  but  he 
never  gives  the  name  of  his  actual  father  in 
an}-  record  that  has  come  to  the  eye  of  mod- 
ern archaeologists  and  antiquarians.  This 
circumstance  gives  ground  for  the  conclu- 
sion that  he  owed  his  possession  of  the 
crown,  not  to  the  legitimate  title  of  heredi- 
tary- succession,  but  to  the  fortunes  of  a  suc- 
cessful re\-olution  which  displaced  the  pre- 
ceding d\-nasty. 

Tiglath-Pileser  II.  undertook  to  effedl  the 
restoration  of  the  A.ssyrian  Empire  by  a 
series  of  wars  upon  his  different  frontiers, 
seeking  by  his  iniwearied  activity  and  tire- 
less energ>-  to  recover  the  losses  occasioned 
by  the  imbecility  of  his  predecessors.  The 
chronological  order  of  these  wars,  which 
was  previously  unknown,  is  now  definitely 
determined  by  the  A.ssyrian  Canon.  Among 
his  man\-  military  expeditions  only  those 
undertaken  into  Babylonia  and  vSyria  are  of 
any  con.sequence.     The  expeditious  of  Tig- 


164 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y.  —A  SS  YRIA . 


latli-Pileser  II.  against  Babylon  occurred 
in  the  first  and  fifteenth  j-ears  of  his  reign, 
B.  C.  745  and  731.  As  soon  as  he  was 
fimily  seated  upon  his  throne  he  led  an 
army  against  Babylon,  over  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  Canon  of  Ptolemy,  Nabonassar 
then  reigned,  and  against  the  other  petty 
Chaldcean  princes,  among  whom  was  Mero- 
dach-Baladan,  who  reigned  in  his  father's 
city  of  Bit-Yakin.  After  attacking  and  de- 
feating several  of  these  princes,  and  taking 
the  towns  of  Kurri-galzu  ( now  Akkerkuf ) 
and  Sippara,  or  Sephar\-aim,  and  other  places 
in  Chaldaea,  Tiglath-Pileser  II.  compelled 
Merodach-Baladan  to  acknowledge  him  as 
suzerain  and  agree  to  pay  an  annual  tribute, 
whereupon  the  Assyrian  monarch  assumed 
the  title  of  "King  of  Babylon"  and  offered 
sacrifice  to  the  Babylonian  gods  in  all  the 
chief  cities  (B.  C.  729). 

The  first  Syrian  war  of  Tiglath-pileser  II. 
began  in  the  third  year  of  his  reign  (B.  C. 
743),  and  lasted  five  years.  During  its  pro- 
gress he  conquered  Damascus,  which  had 
recovered  its  independence  and  was  governed 
by  Rezin.  He  also  subdued  Syria,  where 
Menahem,  Pul's  old  foe,  was  still  reigning. 
He  likewise  reduced  Tyre,  whose  reigning 
sovereign  bore  the  common  name  of  Hiram. 
The  Assyrian  monarch  also  subjedled  Ha- 
math,  Gebal  and  the  Arabs  bordering  upon 
Egypt,  who  were  ruled  by  a  queen  named 
Khabiba.  He  also  defeated  a  large  anny 
under  Azariah,  or  Uzziah,  King  of  Judah, 
but  failed  to  reduce  him  to  submission. 
Tiglath-Pileser  II.  did  not  conquer  Judaea, 
Idumaea,  Philistia,  Phcenicia,  or  the  tribes  of 
the  Hauran,  in  his  first  war;  aud  in  B.  C.  734 
he  renewed  the  struggle  by  an  attack  on 
Samaria,  whose  kiog  at  that  time  was 
Pekah,  and  taking  "  Ijon,  and  Abel-beth- 
maachah,  and  Janoali,  and  Kedesh,  and 
Hazor,  and  Gilead,  and  Galilee,  and  all  the 
land  of  Naphtali,  and  carr\'ing  them  cap- 
tive to  Assyria,"  thus  "lightly  afflicting  the 
land  of  Zebulun  and  the  land  of  Naphtali," 
or  the  more  northern  part  of  the  Holy  Land, 
about  Lake  Merom,  and  thence  to  the  Sea 
of  Gennesareth. 

Then  followed  the  most  important  of  the 


Sj'rian  wars  of  Tiglath-Pileser  II.  The 
common  danger  united  Pekah,  King  of  Sa- 
maria, and  Rezin,  King  of  Damascus,  in  a 
close  alliance;  and  when  Ahaz,  King  of 
Judah,  refused  to  unite  with  them  they  in- 
vaded his  kingdom  and  attempted  to  de- 
throne him  and  put  ' '  the  son  of  Tabeal ' '  in 
his  place.  Ahaz  applied  to  the  King  of  As- 
syria for  help,  offering  to  be  his  "servant" — 
his  vassel  and  tributary — if  he  came  to  his 
relief.  Tiglath-Pileser  II.  gladly  came  to 
the  rescue  of  Ahaz,  and  with  a  large  anny 
he  entered  Syria,  defeated  Rezin  and  besieged 
him  in  Damascus  for  two  j-ears,  when  he 
was  taken  captive  and  slain.  The  Assj'rian 
king  then  invaded  Samaria:  and  the  tribes 
of  Reuben  and  Gad,  and  the  half  tribe  of 
Manasseh,  who  occupied  the  provinces  east 
of  the  Jordan,  were  carried  captiA'e  to  As- 
syria and  colonized  in  Upper  Mesopotamia, 
on  the  affluents  of  the  Bilikh  and  the 
Khabour,  from  about  Harran  to  Nisibis. 
Some  cities  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Jordan, 
in  the  territory  of  Issachar,  but  belonging 
to  Manasseh — among  which  were  Megiddo, 
in  the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  and  Dur,  or  Dor, 
upon  the  coast — were  also  seized  and  occu- 
pied by  the  conquering  Assyrians;  and  As- 
syrian governors  were  placed  over  Dur  and 
the  other  leading  cities  of  Southern  Syria. 
Tiglath-Pileser  II.  then  marched  south- 
ward and  subdued  the  Philistines  and  the 
Arab  tribes  of  the  Sinaitic  peninsula  as  far 
as  the  borders  of  Egypt.  He  deposed  the 
native  queen  of  these  Arabs,  and  put  an 
Assyrian  governor  in  her  place.  Returning 
to  Damascus,  he  there  received  the  submis- 
sion of  the  neighboring  states  and  tribes; 
and  before  he  left  Syria  he  received  submis- 
sion and  tribute  from  Ahaz,  King  of  Judah; 
Mit'enna,  King  of  Tyre;  Pekah,  King  of 
Samaria;  Khanun,  King  of  Gaza;  Mitinti, 
King  of  Ascalon;  and  from  the  Moabites, 
the  Ammonites,  the  people  of  Ar\-ad,  or 
Aradus,  and  the  Idum^ans.  Thus  Tiglath- 
Pileser  II.  fully  reestablished  the  Assyrian 
power  in  Syria,  and  restored  to  his  emjiire 
the  territorj'  from  the  Mediterranean  on 
the  west  to  the  Syrian  desert  on  the  east, 
and  from   Mount  Amanus  on  the  north  to 


POLITICAL    JUSTORY. 


165 


the  Red  vSea  and  the  frontiers  of  I'-gypt  on 
the  south. 

Tiglath-Pileser  II.  afterwards  .sent  an- 
other expedition  into  Syria,  to  ([ucll  the  dis- 
orders occasioned  hy  the  revolt  of  Mit'cnna, 
King  of  Tyre,  and  the  a.s.sassination  of 
Pekah,  King  of  Israel,  by  Hoshea.  The 
Tyrian  king  quickly  submitted,  and  Ho.shea 
agreed  to  govern  his  kingdom  only  as  an 
Assyrian  province;  \vhereni)on  the  Assyrian 
anny  retired  beyond  the  Ivuphrates. 

Calah  was  the  chosen  residence  of  Tig- 
lath-Pile.ser  II.  Here  he  repaired  and 
adorned  the  palace  of  Shalmaneser  II., 
whose  ruins  are  now  in  the  center  of  the 
Nimriid  mound.  Here  he  also  erecfted  a 
new  edifice,  the  most  splendid  of  his  struc- 
tures. The  sculptures  which  embellished 
Shalmaneser' s  palace  were  afterwards  u.sed 
by  Esar-haddon  to  adoni  his  own  palace. 
The  new  palace  which  Tiglath-Pileser  II. 
built,  was  afterward  ruined  by  some  invader, 
and  then  built  upon  by  the  last  Assyrian 
king.  The  excavations  of  this  palace  by 
Messrs.  Layard  and  Loftus  have  revealed 
the  ground-plan  of  the  edifice,  showing  its 
arrangements  of  courts  and  halls  and  cham- 
bers, and  the  sculptures  which  ornamented 
the  walls,  representing  animal  forms,  such 
as  camels,  oxen,  .sheep,  goats,  etc. 

The  Assyrian  Canon  gives  Tiglath-Pileser 
II.  a  reign  of  eighteen  years,  from  B.  C. 
745  to  B.  C.  727.  He  was  succeeded  by 
Sh.\lm.\nesER  IV.  It  is  not  known  wheth- 
er this  monarch  was  related  to  his  prede- 
cessor or  not,  but  he  is  supposed  to  have 
been  his  son.  Shalmaneser  IV.  reigned 
only  between  five  and  six  years  (B.  C. 
727-722).  Soon  after  he  became  king  he 
terrified  Hoshea,  King  of  Judah,  into  a 
renewal  of  his  submission,  so  that  "Ho- 
shea became  his  sen'ant  and  gave  him 
presents,"  or  "rendered  him  tribute." 
Tile  arrears  of  tribute  were  rendered  and 
the  homage  of  the  vassal  king  to  his  lord 
were  paid.  But  soon  afterward  Hoshea, 
disregarding  his  engagements,  was  seeking 
the  alliance  of  the  King  of  Egypt.  Says 
the  Second  Rook  of  Kings:  "And  the  King 
of  Assyria  found  conspiracy  in  Hoshea;  for 


he  had  sent  messengers  to  So,  King  of 
Egypt,  and  brought  no  present  to  the  King 
of  Assyria,  as  he  had  done  year  by  year." 
The  native  Pharaohs  of  Egypt  had  been 
friendly  to  Assyria,  but  the  Ethiopian  dy- 
nasty which  had  recently  conquered  Egj'pt 
was  the  natural  foe  of  the  A.ssyrians,  and 
gladl\-  accepted  the  proposals  of  Hoshea  for 
an  alliance  against  Shalmaneser  IV.  Hoshea 
then  revolted  against  the  Assyrian  monarch, 
withheld  his  tribute  and  declared  his  inde- 
pendence. Shalmaneser  at  once  invaded 
Judah  a  second  time,  and  seized,  bound  and 
imprisoned  Hoshea.  A  year  or  two  later 
Shalmaneser  led  a  third  expedition  into 
Syria  and  "came  up  throughout  all  the 
land,"  and  laid  siege  to  Samaria,  B.  C.  724. 
But  the  siege  lasted  two  3-ears,  on  account 
of  the  heroic  resistance  of  the  iidiabitants, 
aided  by  the  Egyptians;  and  the  city  was 
only  taken  after  the  reign  of  Shalmaneser 
\\ .  had  been  ended  by  a  .successful  revo- 
lution. 

While  engaged  in  the  .siege  of  Samaria, 
Shalmaneser  IV.  was  likewi.se  prosecuting 
hostilities  against  the  Phoenician  cities, 
which  had  also  revolted  against  Assyria 
after  the  death  of  Tiglath-Pileser  II.  Shal- 
maneser quicklj-  overran  Phcenicia  in  the 
first  year  of  his  reign,  and  forced  all  the  re- 
volted cities  to  submit  to  the  Assyrian  yoke. 
Insular  Tyre  soon  again  revolted;  whereupon 
Shalmaneser  reentered  Phcenicia,  and  col- 
lecfling  a  fleet  from  the  other  Phoenician 
cities,  Sidon,  Pala;-Tyrus  and  Akko,  he 
began  the  siege  of  Tyre.  His  sixty  ves.sels 
were  manned  by  eight  hundred  Phoenician 
rowers,  cooperating  with  a  smaller  number 
of  unskilled  Assyrians.  Shalmaneser' s  large 
fleet,  however,  was  easily  routed  and  dis- 
persed, with  the  loss  of  five  hundred  pris- 
oners, by  a  Tyrian  fleet  of  only  twelve 
vessels  manned  by  skillful  seamen.  Shal- 
maneser thereupon  abandoned  a(5li\-e  opera- 
tions against  the  de\-oted  city,  but  left  a 
body  of  troops  on  the  main-land  to  cut  off"  the 
supplies  of  water  which  the  T\-rians  were  in 
the  habit  of  drawing  from  the  river  Litany, 
and  from  the  aqueducfls  which  conducted 
the  water  from  springs  in  the  mountains. 


1 66 


ANCIENT  HIS  T(  ^RY.— A  SS  YRIA . 


The  Tyrians  heroicall)'  held  out  against 
this  pressure  for  five  years,  using  rain- 
water, which  they  collecTied  in  reser\-oirs, 
to  quench  their  thirst.  It  is  not  known 
whether  they  submitted,  or  whether  the 
siege  was  abandoned,  as  the  quotation  from 
Menander,  our  only  authority  on  this  point, 
here  breaks  off  aljruptly. 

Before  either  of  the  two  great  militarv^  en- 
ter[3rises  of  his  reign  were  concluded,  Shal- 
maneser  IV.  was  hurled  from  his  throne  by 
a  successful  revolution,  which  put  the 
usurper  Sargon  in  his  place.  The  monu- 
ments furnish  us  no  knowledge  of  the  cir- 
cumstances concerning  this  usurpation,  be- 
yond the  mere  absence  of  Shalmaneser  in 
Syria;  but  it  is  believed  that  discontent, 
caused  by  the  distress  in  consequence  of  the 
king's  long  absence  from  the  capital  of  his 
empire,  and  by  his  failure  to  speedily  reduce 
Samaria  and  Tyre,  encouraged  Sargon  in 
his  usurpation.  The  usurper's  station  must 
previously  have  been  obscure,  or,  at  least, 
mediocre,  as  no  inscription  can  be  found  in 
which  he  glories  in  his  ancestrj',  or  even 
names  his  father,  as  was  the  custom  with 
the  legitimate  heirs  and  successors  of  Assyr- 
ian and  Babylonian  monarchs,  but  he  only 
alludes  to  the  Assyrian  kings,  in  a  general 
way,  as  his  ancestors.  Sargon,  or  Sargina, 
means  ' '  the  firm  "  or  "  well-establi.shed 
king." 

Sargon  determined  to  confirm  his  doubtful 
title  to  the  throne  by  the  prestige  of  mili- 
tary success,  and  at  once  began  a  series  of 
warlike  expeditions.  He  condudled  success- 
ive wars  in  Susiana,  in  Syria  on  the  borders 
of  Egypt,  in  the  tract  beyond  Amanus,  in 
Melitene  and  Southern  Armenia,  in  Media 
and  in  Chaldaea.  His  expeditions  occupied 
the  whole  of  the  first  fifteen  years  of  his 
reign.  Immediately  upon  his  accession  he 
invaded  vSu.siana  and  defeated  its  king, 
Hnnibanigas,  and  Merodach-Baladan,  the 
old  enenn'  of  Tiglath-Pileser  II.,  who  had 
revolted  and  made  himself  King  of  Baby- 
lonia. Though  an  important  vicflory  was 
thus  gained,  and  many  captives  taken  and 
transported  to  the  country  of  the  Hittites, 
the   Susianian  and   Babvlonian   kings  were 


not  fully  reduced  to  subje(flion.  In  the 
same  year,  B.  C.  722,  Samaria  surren- 
dered to  Sargon' s  generals,  after  its  two 
years'  siege  begun  by  Shalmaneser  IV. 
Sargon  punished  the  devoted  city  by  depos- 
ing its  native  king  and  placing  an  Assyrian 
governor  over  it  instead,  and  by  carrying 
into  slavery  27,280  of  its  inhabitants.  On 
those  who  remained  he  re-imposed  the  rate 
of  tribute  to  which  the  city  had  been  sub- 
jecfled  before  its  revolt.  The  next  year,  B. 
C.  721,  Sargon  was  obliged  to  lead  an  expe- 
dition into  Syria  to  quell  a  formidable  revolt. 
The  usurper,  Yahu-bid,  or  Ilu-bid,  King  of 
Hamath,  had  headed  a  rebellion,  in  which  the 
cities  of  Arpad,  Zimira,  Damascus  and  Sa- 
maria had  participated;  but  the  allied  rebels 
were  defeated  by  Sargon  at  Karkar,  or  Gar- 
gar,  Yahu-bid  and  the  other  revolted  leaders 
being  taken  prisoners  and  put  to  death. 

Having  crushed  this  revolt  in  Syria,  Sar- 
gon marched  southward  against  the  Egyp- 
tians, who  had  extended  their  dominion  over 
a  part  of  Philistia.  At  Rapikh,  on  the  Medi- 
terranean coast,  half-way  between  Gaza  and 
Wady-el-Arish,  or  "  River  of  Egypt" — the 
Raphia  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  the 
modern  Refah — the  united  forces  of  the 
Philistines  under  Khanun,  King  of  Gaza, 
and  tho,se  of  Sabaco,  or  Shabak,  the  Ethi- 
opian King  of  Eg^-pt,  were  defeated  by  the 
Assyrian  monarch  ;  Khanun  being  made 
prisoner.,  and  Shabak  seeking  safety  in  flight, 
B.  C.  720.  Khanun  was  deprived  of  his 
crown  and  carried  a  captive  to  Assyria  by 
his  conqueror.  The  battle  of  Raphia  is  im- 
portant as  being  the  beginning  of  Egypt's 
subjecftion  to  the  successive  dominion  of 
Asiatic  and  European  nations — A.ssyrians, 
Babylonians,  Medo-Persians,  Greeks,  Ro- 
mans, vSaracens  and  Turks. 

After  conducfling  unimportant  wars  to- 
ward the  north  and  north-east,  Sargon  led 
another  expedition  towards  the  .south-west 
in  B.  C.  715,  five  years  after  his  vidlory  at 
Raphia.  He  first  chastised  the  Arab  tribes 
who  had  made  plundering  raids  into  Syria, 
during  which  "he  subdued  the  uncultivated 
plains  of  the  remote  Arabia,  which  had 
never  before  given  tribute  to  Assyria. ' '  sub- 


POLITICAL    IIISl'OR  Y. 


167 


je(5ted  the  Thaimidites  and  other  Arab  tribes, 
and  settled  a  certain  number  of  them  in  Sa- 
maria. The  surrounding  princes  sought  the 
conqueror's  favor  by  sending  him  embassies 
and  offering  to  become  Assyrian  tributaries. 
The  King  of  Egypt,  as  well  as  It-hamar, 
King  of  the  Saba^ans,  and  Tsamsi,  the  Arab 
queen,  tlius  became  vassals  to  Sargon  and 
sent  him  presents. 

Four  years  afterward,  B.  C.  711,  Sargon 
conduc5led  a  third  expedition  into  this  region 
to  punish  Azuri,  King  of  Ashdod,  who  had 
revolted  against  the  Assyrian  monarch, 
withheld  his  tribute  and  incited  rebellion 
among  the  neighboring  princes.  Sargon 
deposed  Azuri  and  put  his  brother  Akhimit 
on  the  throne  of  Ashdod  in  his  stead;  but 
the  people  of  this  Philistine  city  refused  to 
recognize  Sargon's  creature  as  their  king, 
and  chose  a  certain  Yaman,  or  Yavan,  for 
their  ruler,  who,  to  secure  himself,  entered 
into  alliances  with  the  other  Philistine  cities, 
and  with  Judah  and  Edom.  Thereupon 
Sargon  led  an  army  against  Ashdod,  but 
Yaman  sought  safety  in  flight,  and  "escaped 
to  the  dependencies  of  Egypt,  which  were 
under  the  rule  of  Ethiopia."  The  Assyrian 
king  besieged  and  took  Ashdod,  and  Ya- 
man's  wife  and  children,  with  most  of  the 
inhabitants,  were  transported  to  Assyria, 
while  captives  from  other  nations  taken  in 
Sargon's  Eastern  wars  were  colonized  in 
Ashdod,  over  which  an  Assyrian  governor 
was  also  placed.  Shabak,  or  Sabaco,  the 
Ethiopian  king  of  Egypt,  greatly  terrified, 
sent  an  embassy  imploring  his  favor,  and 
surrendered  the  fugitive  Yaman.  In  conse- 
quence of  this  suppliant  attitude  of  the 
Ethiopian  .sovereign  of  Egypt,  "the  Assyr- 
ian monarch  boasts  that  the  King  of  Meroe, 
who  dwelt  in  the  desert,  and  had  never  sent 
ambassadors  to  any  of  the  kings  his  prede- 
cessors, was  led  by  the  fear  of  his  majesty 
to  diredl  his  steps  towards  Assyria  and 
humbly  bow  down  before  him." 

Sargon  next  led  an  expedition  against 
Babylon,  over  which  Merodach-Baladan  had 
been  quieth^  reigning  for  twelve  years. 
Having  established  his  court  at  Babylon, 
Merodach-Baladan    fonned    alliances    with 


Sutruk-Nakhunta,  King  of  Susiana,  and 
the  Aramaean,  or  Syrian,  tribes  above  Bal)y- 
lonia,  to  resi.st  any  attack  by  the  Assyrian 
monarch.  Nevertheless  when  Sargon  ad- 
vanced against  Babylon,  Merodach-Baladan 
fled  to  his  own  city,  Beth-Yakin,  leaving 
garrisons  under  his  generals  in  the  more 
important  inland  towns.  At  Beth-Yakin, 
which  was  situated  on  the  Euphrates,  near 
its  mouth,  the  Babylonian  king  prepared  for 
a  stubborn  resistance,  summoning  the  Ara- 
maeans to  his  assistance.  He  posted  him- 
self in  the  plain  in  front  of  the  city,  and 
proteefted  his  front  and  left  flank  with  a  deep 
ditch,  which  he  filled  with  water  from  the 
Euphrates.  Sargon  soon  appeared  at  the 
head  of  his  armj-,  and  defeated  the  Baby- 
lonian troops  and  drove  them  into  their 
own  dyke,  where  many  of  them  were 
drowned,  while  the  allies  were  also  driven 
away  in  headlong  flight.  Merodach-Baladan 
shut  himself  up  in  Beth-Yakin,  which  was 
besieged  and  taken  by  Sargon.  The  Baby- 
lonian king  himself  became  a  prisoner,  but 
his  life  was  generously  spared  b)-  his  con- 
queror, who,  however,  plundered  the  palace 
and  burned  the  city,  and  himself  assumed 
the  government  of  Babylonia,  depriving 
Merodach-Baladan  of  his  throne.  In  the 
Canon  of  Ptolemy,  Sargon  is  called  Arce- 
anus. 

Sargon  then  reduced  the  Aramaeans  and 
conquered  a  portion  of  Susiana,  to  which 
countn,'  he  transported  the  Commukha  from 
the  Upper  Tigris,  placing  an  Assyrian  gov- 
ernor over  the  mixed  population,  and  mak- 
ing him  dependent  upon  the  A.ssyrian 
viceroy  of  Babylon.  Thus  the  Assyrian 
dominion  was  firmly  established  over  Chal- 
daea,  or  Babylonia,  whose  power  was  now 
completely  broken.  Thenceforth,  with  a 
few  brief  intemiptions,  Chaldasa  remained 
an  Assyrian  dependency  until  the  downfall 
of  the  Ass>rian  Em]iire  in  B.  C.  625.  Now 
and  then,  for  a  short  interval,  the  unwilling 
.subject  kingdom  cast  off  the  conqueror's 
yoke  only  to  be  again  reduced  to  a  more 
humiliating  state  of  vassalage,  until  it  event- 
unlU-  submitted  to  the  hand  of  fate  and  re- 
mained (juiet.     During  the  last  half  century 


16S 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  }  '.—ASS  YRIA. 


of  the  Assj-rian  Empire,  from  B.  C.  680  to 
B.  C.  625,  Babylonia  was  one  of  the  most 
tranquil  of  its  provinces. 

While  Sargon  held  his  court  at  Babj-lon 
in  B.  C.  708  or  707,  he  received  embassies 
from  two  opposite  quarters,  both  from 
islanders  dwelling  ' '  in  the  middle  of  the 
seas ' '  that  bordered  on  his  dominions.  One 
embassy  was  sent  by  Upir,  King  of  Asmun, 
the  ruler  of  the  island  of  Khareg,  or  Bah- 
rein, in  the  Persian  Gulf;  and  the  other  by 
seven  kings  of  Cyprus — princes  of  a  countr>' 
which  was  located  ' '  at  the  distance  of  seven 
days  from  the  coast,  in  the  sea  of  the  setting 
sun" — who  offered  the  great  Oriental  sov- 
ereign treasures  of  gold,  silver,  vases,  logs 
of  ebony,  and  the  manufadlures  of  their  own 
country.  By  bestowing  these  presents  the 
Cypriots  acknowledged  the  suzerainty  of 
the  King  of  Assj^ria;  and  they  carried  home 
with  them  an  effigy  of  their  sovereign  lord 
carv^ed  in  the  usual  form,  and  bearing  an  in- 
scription recording  his  name  and  titles, 
which  they  .set  up  at  Idalium,  near  the 
center  of  the  island.  This  effigy  of  Sargon, 
found  upon  the  sight  of  Idalium,  is  now  in 
the  Berlin  Museum.  In  the  inscriptions, 
"setting  up  the  image  of  his  majesty"  is 
always  a  sign  that  a  monarch  has  conquered 
a  country.  Such  images  are  sometimes  rep- 
resented in  the  bas-reliefs. 

Sargon' s  expeditions  to  the  north  and 
north-east  also  yielded  successful  results; 
and  the  mountain  tribes  of  the  Zagros,  the 
Taurus  and  the  Niphates — the  Medes,  the 
Armenians,  the  Tibarenians,  the  Moschians 
and  others — were  thus  subdued.  Ambris 
tlie  Tibarenian,  Mita  the  Moschian,  and 
Urza  the  Armenian  had  become  allies 
against  their  common  foe,  the  King  of 
Assyria;  and  their  submission  was  only 
forced  after  a  long  and  fierce  contest.  Am- 
bris was  deposed,  and  an  Assyrian  governor 
was  placed  over  his  countr\-.  Mita,  after  a 
resistance  of  many  years,  onl)-  agreed  to  pay 
tribute.  Urza  committed  .suicide,  in  despair 
at  his  defeat.  But  this  region  was  only 
brought  (juietly  under  tlie  Assyrian  yoke 
when  the  King  of  Van  was  conciliated  by 
the  cession  to  him  of  a  large  extent  of  coun- 


trj'  which  the  Assyrians  had  wrested  from 
Urza.  Having  rapidly  overrun  Media,  Sar- 
gon seized  a  number  of  towns  and  ' '  annexed 
them  to  Assyria,"  thus  reducing  a  large 
part  of  that  country  to  the  condition  of  an 
Assyrian  province.  He  erecfted  a  number 
of  fortified  posts  in  one  part  of  the  country, 
and  imposed  upon  the  Medes  a  tribute  con- 
sisting wholly  of  honses. 

After  the  fourteenth  year  of  his  reign,  B. 
C.  708,  Sargon  resigned  the  leadership  of 
his  armies  entirely  into  the  hands  of  his 
generals.  A  disputed  succession  in  Illib,  a 
small  country  on  the  borders  of  Susiana,  in 
B.  C.  707,  affisrded  him  an  occasion  for  in- 
terference in  that  quarter.  Nibi,  a  pretend- 
er to  the  throne  of  Illib,  had  solicited  the 
aid  of  Sutruk-Nakhunta,  King  of  Elam,  or 
Susiana,  who  held  his  court  at  Susa,  from 
whom  he  received  promises  of  support  and 
protecflion.  The  other  claimant,  named  Is- 
pabara,  thereupon  sought  and  received  the 
assistance  of  Sargon,  who  sent  "seven  cap- 
tains with  seven  armies,  ' '  and  these  defeated 
the  troops  of  the  King  of  Susiana  and  estab- 
lished Ispabara  on  the  throne  of  Illib.  The 
next  year,  however,  Sutruk-Nakhunta  in- 
vaded Assyria,  and  took  some  of  its  cities 
and  annexed  them  to  his  kingdom. 

In  all  his  wars  Sargon  made  use  of  the 
plan  of  wholesale  deportation  of  populations. 
Israelites  were  thus  transferred  from  Sama- 
ria to  Gozan,  or  Mygdonia,  and  the  cities  of 
the  Medes.  Armenians  were  colonized  in  Ha- 
math  and  Damascus.  Tibarenians  were  set- 
tled in  Assyria,  and  Assyrians  were  trans- 
ported to  the  countr}'  of  the  Tibarenians. 
Mountaineers  from  the  Zagros  were  likewise 
carried  captive  to  Assyria.  Chaldaeans, 
Arabians  and  others  were  established  in 
Samaria.  Medes  and  other  Eastern  people 
were  placed  in  Ashdod.  The  Commukha 
were  removed  from  the  extreme  North  to 
Susiana,  and  Chaldaeans  were  brought  from 
the  far  South  to  supply  their  place.  In 
every  quarter  of  his  dominions  Sargon 
"changed  the  abodes"  of  his  subjecfts,  with 
a  view  of  weakening  the  more  powerful 
nationalities  by  di.spersion,  and  of  .smother- 
ing all  patriotic  impulses  in  the  feebler  races 


POLITICAL    lUSTOR  Y. 


169 


by  severing'  at  one  stroke  all  the  bonds  of 
attachment  to  their  native  land.  Although 
this  system  had  been  practised  by  fonner 
Assyrian  kings,  none  had  carried  it  out  on 
so  extensive  and  so  grand  a  scale  as  Sargon. 

The  splendid  palace  which  this  monarch 
had  erected  at  Dur  vSargina  (City  of  Sargon), 
the  modern  Khorsabail,  was  the  most  strik- 
ing of  his  great  architectural  works.  It  was 
not  as  large  as  the  palaces  built  by  previous 
or  subsequent  kings,  but  it  surpassed  all 
other  royal  residences  by  its  magnificence 
and  grandeur,  with  the  solitary  exception 
of  the  great  palace  of  Asshur-bani-pal  at 
Nineveh.  Its  ornamentation  was  resplendent 
be>-ond  description.  It  was  literally  covered 
with  sculptures,  both  inside  and  outside, 
generally  arranged  in  two  rows,  one  above 
the  other,  and  illu.strating  the  events  in 
Sargon' s  wars,  his  battles  and  sieges,  his 
captives,  his  treatment  of  prisoners,  etc. 
Above  this  it  was  embellished  with  en- 
ameled bricks,  fashioned  in  beautiful  mod- 
els. Leading  to  this  magnificent  edifice 
were  noble  flights  of  steps;  and  the  structure 
stood  by  itself,  .so  that  its  appearance  was 
not  marred  by  the  proximity  of  other  build- 
ings. Its  entrances  and  passages  were 
guarded  by  colossal  winged  man-headed 
bulls  and  lions.  It  was  in  many  partic- 
ulars the  most  interesting  of  As.S5-rian 
works.  The  city  where  this  palace  was 
located  was  surrounded  with  strong  walls, 
enclosing  a  square  two  thousand  ^-ards  each 
way.  Assigning  fifty  square  }'ards  to  each 
person,  this  space  could  have  accommodated 
eighty  thousand  people.  The  cit)-,  as  well 
as  the  palace,  was  wholh-  built  by  Sargon, 
whose  name  it  bore  until  after  the  Arab 
conquest  in  the  seventh  century  after  Christ. 

Sargon's  palace  is  the  most  complete  of 
the  Assyrian  royal  residences  j-et  unco\-ered. 
It  exhibits  the  architecture,  the  decorative 
art  and  sculpture  of  the  A.ssyrians  in  their 
highest  fonns.  Like  all  other  Assyrian 
palaces,  it  stands  on  the  summit  of  an  im- 
mense mound  constructed  of  bricks.  The 
mound  was  arranged  in  two  platforms  of 
unequal  height  in  the  form  of  the  letter  T. 
The  palace  proper  was  built  on  the  more  ele- 
1— ll.-U.  H. 


vated  mound,  and  consisted  of  a  series  of 
structures  ranged  around  inunen.se  courts. 
The  main  building  occupied  by  the  king 
was  located  at  the  bottom  of  the  principal 
court,  and  had  a  perfectly  regular  fa9ade, 
with  a  magnificently-omamented  gateway 
in  the  middle.  Two-thirds  of  the  north- 
west part  of  the  palace  was  occupied  by  the 
grand  reception  hall  and  its  large  and  mag- 
nificent galleries,  with  walls  ca.sed  with 
bas-reliefs;  one-third,  to  the  .south-east,  by 
the  inhabited  apartments,  with  smaller  and 
less  decorated  rooms.  Passages  led  into 
two  of  the  .sides  of  the  large  court;  one  on 
the  north-west  to  a  square  esplanade,  or 
court,  occupying  the  northern  angle  of  the 
artificial  mound  of  the  palace,  in  front  of  a 
building  joining  the  north-west  face  of  the 
seraglio,  with  which  it  had  no  communica- 
tion intemall)-.  This  edifice  was  most  pro- 
fusely ornamented;  it  contained  six  im- 
mense halls  decorated  with  sculpture,  and 
some  other  smaller  rooms.  It  was  "a  .second 
palace  grafted  on  to  the  first — a  second  sela- 
mik,  rivaling  in  splendor  that  of  the  serag- 
glio."  The  pa.ssage  leading  into  the  .south- 
east side  of  the  reception  hall  of  the  serag- 
lio opened  to  the  lower  platform,  and  to 
the  great  court  of  the  offices.  The  lower 
platform  of  the  artificial  hill  raised  for  the 
palace  of  Sargon  was  occupied  by  the  khan 
and  the  harem.  This  part  of  the  structure 
faced  towards  the  city,  and  connnunicated 
directly  with  it.  In  the  midst  was  the 
khan  proper,  an  enormous  square  court, 
surrounded  on  every  side  by  buildings,  sta- 
bles, lodgings  for  grooms  and  for  most  of 
the  sla\'es.  It  was  reached  from  the  city  by 
two  immense  flights  of  steps  in  the  center  of 
the  south-east  face  of  the  terrace.  As  we 
have  obser\-ed,  an  elaborately-decorated  pas- 
sage led  from  this  court  of  the  khan  into 
the  reception  hall  of  the  seraglio.  Two 
small  doors  likewise  communicated  directl)' 
with  the  occupied  rooms  of  the  palace.  To 
the  right  of  the  khan  was  the  khazneh,  or 
treasury,  with  its  many  courts  and  cham- 
bers, constituting  some  of  the  offices  or  com- 
mon rooms  of  the  palace.  Here  were  the 
stores  of  provisions  for  the  royal  hou.sehold, 


170 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  y.—ASS\  'RIA. 


and  places  for  the  custod}-  of  the  vahiables 
which  Sargoii  informs  us,  in  his  dedicatory 
inscription,  that  he  had  acquired  by  his 
conquests  and  stored  in  his  palace.    Adjoin- 


had  many  long  galleries  and  many  rooms  for 
habitation.  The  harem  was  shut  in  in  the 
closest  possible  manner;  all  communica- 
tion with  the  outside  world  was  intercepted, 


w 

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ing  the  khazneh  was  the  harem,  containing  [  and  the  women  were  virtually  imprisoned, 
three  courts,  the  %valls  of  one  of  them  being  j  A  solitarj'  vestibule,  guarded  by  eunuchs, 
covered  with  rich  decorations  in  enameled  led  to  it  by  two  i.ssues;  one  connedling  with 
bricks.     Besides  the  three  courts,  the  harem  ,'  the   great   court  of   the  offices   being  from 


poi.rncAr.  irrsroRV. 


171 


the  outside;  the  other  opening  to  a  long, 
narrow  court  leading  to  the  inhabited  apart- 
ments of  the  seraglio,  through  which  pass- 
age the  king  found  access  to  the  harem  with- 
out being  exposed  to  the  view  of  the  public. 
Behind  the  harem  was  the  Temple  Court, 
consisting  of  an  immense  tower,  or  pyramid, 
in  seven  stages,  nearly  fifty  yards  high.  The 
.seven  stages,  equally  high,  and  each  one 
.smaller  in  area  than  the  one  below  it,  were 
covered  with  stucco  of  various  colors,  thus 
exhibiting  to  view  the  colors  consecrated 
to  the  seven  great  celestial  bodies,  the  least 
important  being  at  the  base.  This  tower 
was  the  ziggurai,  or  observatory,  on  whose 
summit  the  priestly  disciples  of  the  Chaldse- 
ans  endeavored  to  divine  the  future  in  the 
stars. 

Before  the  constru6lion  of  the  great  palace 
at  Dur-Sargina,  Sargon's  residence  was  at 
Calah,  where  he  repaired  the  decayed  palace 
of  Asshur-izir-pal.  He  also  repaired  the 
ruined  walls  of  Nineveh,  where  he  built  a 
temple  to  Xebo  and  Merodach.  He  like- 
wise improved  the  embankments  at  Babylon, 
thus  controlling  and  directing  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  waters.  The  number  of  Assjt- 
ian  scientific  tablets,  .shown  by  the  dates 
upon  them  to  have  been  written  in  his  time, 
fully  attest  his  patronage  of  science. 

There  was  nothing  .significant  in  the  pro- 
gress of  mimetic  art  during  Sargon's  reign, 
but  several  branches  of  industry  showed 
signs  of  impro\-ement,  while  there  was  bet- 
ter ta.ste  in  design  and  ornamentation.  At 
this  time  transparent  glass  was  first  brought 
into  u.se,  and  intaglios  were  first  cut  upon 
hard  stones.  The  furniture  of  this  period  is 
far  superior  in  design  to  that  of  any  former 
age  represented,  while  the  models  of  sword- 
hilts,  maces,  armlets  and  other  ornaments 
are  singularly  tasteful  and  elegant.  At  this 
time  the  enameling  of  bricks  had  attained 
its  highest  degree  of  perfection;  while  the 
styles  of  va.ses,  goblets  and  boats  indicate  a 
decided  advance  upon  the  same  class  of 
works  of  previous  times.  In  sculpture  the 
advance  in  animal  fonns  in  the  times  of 
Tiglath-Pileser  H.  still  went  on  inider  Sar- 
gon;  and  the  drawing  of  horses'  heads,  es- 


peciall)-,   shows  verj-  remarkable  accuracy. 

Sargon  died  in  B.  C.  705,  after  a  glorious 
reign  of  seventeen  years,  and  was  succeeded 
on  the  throne  by  his  son,  Sennacherib,  the 
most  renowned  of  all  the  Assyrian  kings, 
and  of  whom  w-e  have  such  long  notices  in 
the  Old  Testament.  Sennacherib  reigned 
twenty-four  years,  from  B.  C.  705  to  B.  C. 
68 1.  The  sources  which  we  have  of  the 
annals  of  his  reign  are  the  notices  in  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  some  fragments  of  Polj-- 
histor  preserved  by  Eusebius,  a  passage  from 
Herodotus  mentioning  his  name,  and  two 
records  written  during  his  reign,  giving  de- 
scriptions of  his  military  exploits  and  his 
buildings,  and  known  respedlively  as  the 
' '  Taylor  Cylinder ' '  and  the  ' '  Bellino  Cyl- 
inder. ' ' 

The  Canon  of  Ptolemy  shows  an  interreg- 
luim  of  two  years  at  Babylon,  from  B.  C. 
704  to  B.  C.  702,  and  Polyhistor  mentions 
three  pretenders  to  the  throne  of  Babylonia 
during  this  brief  interval.  These  were  a 
brother  of  Sennacherib;  a  claimant  named 
Hagisa;  and  Merodach-Baladan,  who  had 
escaped  from  captivity,  murdered  Hagisa 
and  resumed  the  throne  of  which  Sargon 
had  deprived  him  six  years  before.  In  B.  C. 
703  Sennacherib  led  an  army  into  Babylonia 
and  defeated  the  troops  of  Merodach-Bala- 
dan and  their  Su.sianian  auxiliaries,  took 
Babylon  and  overran  Chaldaea,  plunder- 
ing (according  to  his  own  account)  seventy- 
six  large  towns  and  four  hundred  and 
twenty  villages.  Merodach-Baladan  again 
escaped  from  the  countn,',  and  his  sons  were 
afterwards  found  living  as  refugees  in  Susi- 
ana.  Before  leaving  Babylon,  Sennacherib 
appointed  as  tributary  king  an  Assyrian 
named  Belipni — the  Belibus  of  Ptolemy's 
Canon,  and  the  Elibus  of  Polyhistor.  After 
returning  from  Babylon,  Sennacherib  rav- 
aged the  countrj-  of  the  Aranueans  on  the 
middle  Euphrates,  carrying  into  captivity 
more  than  two  hundred  thousand  inhab- 
itants, and  seizing  al.so  large  numbers  of 
horses,  camels,  a.sses,  o.xen  ami  .sheep.  The 
next  year,  B.  C.  702,  Sennacherib  attacked 
the  mountain  tribes  of  the  Zagros,  driving 
from  the  country   Ispabara,   whom  Sargon 


172 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  Y.  —  ASS  YRIA . 


had  elevated  to  power,  and  reducing  to  sub- 
jecflion  many  cities,  over  which  he  placed 
Assyrian  governors. 

In  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign,  B.  C.  701, 
Sennacherib  engaged  in  the  most  important 
of  all  his  military  expeditions.  This  was 
his  invasion  of  Syria,  Phcenicia  and  Pales- 
tine, during  which  he  attacked  Luliya,  King 
of  Sidon,  and  also  Hezekiah,  King  of  Ju- 
dah.  With  an  immense  host  he  first  invaded 
Phcenicia,  where  Luliya — the  Elulaeus  of 
Menander — had  broken  out  into  revolt  during 
the  early  years  of  Sennacherib's  reign.  Lu- 
liya had  made  himself  master  of  most  of 
Phcenicia,  including  T}-re,  Akko  and  many 
otlier  leading  cities.  On  the  approach 
of  the  Assyrian  king,  the  Sidonian  chief  fled 
from  the  main-land  and  found  refuge  in  "an 
island  in  the  middle  of  the  sea,"  probably 
the  island  of  T5're,  or  perhaps  Cj-prus.  Sen- 
nacherib received  the  submission  of  the 
Phcenician  cities  which  Luliya  had  ruled, 
and  placed  over  them  a  tributary  prince 
named  Tubal.  The  King  of  Assyria  next 
marched  southwards  into  Philistia,  and  put 
an  end  to  the  resistance  of  Sidka,  King  of 
Ascalon,  who,  with  his  wife,  children  and 
brothers,  were  made  captives;  while  the  city 
was  also  taken  and  another  prince  set  up, 
the  revolted  chief  being  carried  a  prisoner  to 
Assyria.  The  towns  of  Hazor,  Joppa, 
Bene-berak,  and  Beth-Dagon^dependencies 
of  Ascalon — were  soon  afterwards  taken  and 
plundered. 

The  conquering  Sennacherib  then  took  the 
field  against  Egypt,  whose  Ethiopian  king — 
theSevechusof  Manetho,  and  the  So  of  Scrip- 
ture— had  come  to  the  support  of  the  revolted 
Philistine  city  of  Ekron,  which  had  expelled 
its  king,  Padi,  who  had  remained  loyal  to  As- 
syria. The  Egyptian  ami}-,  consisting  of 
chariots,  horsemen  and  archers,  was  so 
large  that  Sennacherib  called  it  "  a  host  that 
could  not  be  numbered."  At  Altaku — be- 
lieved to  be  the  Eltekeh  of  the  Jews — was 
fought  the  .second  great  battle  between  the 
A.ssyrians  and  the  Egyptians.  Again  the 
power  of  Asia  triumphed  over  that  of  Africa. 
The  Egj-ptians  and  Ethiopians  were  defeated 
with  frightful  slaughter,  many  of  their  char- 


iots, with  their  drivers,  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  conquering  Assyrians.  In 
consequence  of  their  great  vi<5lory,  the  As- 
s>Tians  inmiediately  captured  the  towns  of 
Altaku  and  Tamna.  Rebellious  Ekron  also 
at  once  submitted  to  Sennacherib,  opening 
its  gates  to  the  vidlorious  monarch,  who  in- 
flidted  a  terrible  punishment  upon  the  rebels, 
whose  leaders  were  put  to  death,  their  bodies 
being  exposed  on  stakes  round  the  entire 
circuit  of  the  city  walls;  while  large  num- 
bers of  inferior  rank  were  sold  into  slavery. 
Padi,  the  expelled  king  who  was  friendly  to 
Assyria,  was  restored  to  his  authority  as 
king,  tributarj'  to  the  Assyrian  monarch. 

Besides  the  Egyptians  and  Ethiopians, 
the  revolted  city  of  Ekron  had  Hezekiah, 
King  of  Judah,  for  an  ally.  When  the 
Ekronites  deposed  Padi,  they  seized  him, 
loaded  him  with  chains,  and  sent  him  to 
Hezekiah  for  safe  keeping.  To  punish  the 
King  of  Judah  for  his  complicity  in  the 
Ekronite  revolt,  "Sennacherib,  King  of 
Assyria,  came  up  against  all  the  fenced 
cities  of  Judah  and  took  them.  And  Heze- 
kiah, King  of  Judah,  sent  to  the  King  of 
As.syria  to  Lachish,  saying,  I  have  offended; 
retiurn  from  me;  that  which  thou  puttest  on 
me  will  I  bear.  And  the  King  of  Assyria 
appointed  unto  Hezekiah,  King  of  Judah, 
three  hundred  talents  of  silver  and  thirty 
talents  of  gold.  And  Hezekiah  gave  him 
all  the  silver  that  was  found  in  the  house  of 
the  Lord,  and  in  the  treasures  of  the  king's 
house.  At  that  time  did  Hezekiah  cut  off 
the  doors  of  the  hou.se  of  the  Lord,  and  the 
pillars  which  Hezekiah,  King  of  Judah,  had 
overlaid,  and  gave  it  to  the  King  of  As- 
syria." Such  is  the  short  account  of  this 
expedition  of  Sennacherib,  as  recorded  in 
the  Second  Book  of  Kings. 

We  will  now  give  the  account  recorded  by 
Sennacherib  himself  in  these  words:  "Be- 
cause Hezekiah,  King  of  Judah,  would  not 
submit  to  my  j'oke,  I  came  up  against  him, 
and  by  force  of  arms  and  by  the  might  of 
my  power  I  took  forty-six  of  his  strong 
fenced  cities;  and  of  the  smaller  towns 
which  were  scattered  about  I  took  and. 
plundered  a  countless  number.     And  from 


SKNNACHHRII!    ATTACKING  JKRUSALEM. 


POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


•73 


these  places  I  captured  and  carried  off  as 
spoil  two  hundred  thousand  and  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  people,  old  and  young,  male 
and  female,  together  with  horses  and  mares, 
asses  and  camels,  oxen  and  sheep,  a  count- 
less multitude.  And  Hezekiah  himself  I 
shut  up  in  Jerusalem,  his  capital  cit\',  like  a 
bird  in  a  cage,  building  towers  round  the 
city  to  hem  him  in,  and  raising  banks  of 
earth  against  the  gates,  so  as  to  prevent  es- 
cape. *  *  *  Then  upon  this  Hezekiah  there 
fell  the  fear  of  the  power  of  my  arms,  and 
he  sent  out  to  me  the  chiefs  and  the  elders 
of  Jerusalem  with  thirty  talents  of  gold  and 
eight  hundred  talents  of  silver,  and  divers 
treasures,  a  rich  and  immense  bootj-.  *  *  * 
All  these  things  were  brought  to  me  at  Niu- 
e\-eh,  the  seat  of  my  govennnent,  Hezekiah 
having  ser.t  them  by  way  of  tribute,  and  as 
a  token  of  his  submission  to  mj-  power." 

After  wreaking  his  vengeance  upon  the 
people  of  Ekron,  Sennacherib  invaded  Ju- 
dali,  directing  his  march  toward  Jerusalem, 
taking  many  small  towns  and  villages  on 
the  way,  and  carrying  two  hundred  thou- 
sand of  their  inhabitants  into  slaverj-  and 
captivity.  Upon  reaching  Jerusalem  he  laid 
siege  to  the  city  in  the  usual  waj-,  erecfling 
towers  around  it,  from  which  stones  and  ar- 
rows were  discharged  against  the  defenders 
of  the  fortifications,  and  "casting  banks" 
were  hurled  against  the  walls  and  gates. 
The  fortifications  of  Jerusalem  were  weak, 
and  there  had  recently  been  many  '  'breaches 
of  the  city  of  David."  The  inhabitants 
had  ha.stily  fortified  the  city  by  pulling 
down  the  houses  near  the  wall.  Great 
alarm  was  felt  for  the  safety  of  the  holy 
places.  Jerusalem  was  "full  of  stirs  and 
tumult."  The  people  rushed  to  the  house- 
tops, and  saw  "the  choicest  vallej-s  full  of 
chariots,  and  the  horsemen  set  in  array  at 
the  gates. ' '  Then  followed  ' '  a  day  of  trouble, 
and  of  treading  down,  and  of  perplex- 
ity"— a  day  of  "breaking  down  the  walls 
and  of  crying  to  the  mountains."  In  the 
midst  of  this  consternation  some  were  made 
reckless  by  despair;  so  that  there  was  a  gen- 
eral ' '  call  to  weeping,  and  to  mourning,  and 
to  baldness,  and  to  girding  with  sackcloth 


— beholding  jo}-  and  gladness,  slaying  oxen 
and  killing  sheep,  eating  flesh  and  drinking 
wine — '  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow 
we  shall  die.'  "  Seeing  the  hopelessness 
of  further  resistance,  Hezekiah  offered  to 
surrender  upon  terms  which  Sennacherib 
granted.  It  was  agreed  that  Hezekiah 
should  pay  an  annual  tribute  of  thirty  tal- 
ents of  gold  and  three  hundred  talents  of 
silver,  and  that  he  should  al.so  give  up  the 
chief  treasures  of  the  city  as  a  "present" 
to  the  Great  King.  To  procure  an  ade- 
quate supply  of  gold,  Hezekiah  was  obliged 
to  strip  the  walls  and  pillars  of  the  Temple 
of  this  precious  metal,  with  which  they 
were  partly  overlaid.  He  gave  up  all  the 
silver- from  the  royal  treasury  and  from  the 
treasury  of  the  Temple,  which  amounted  to 
five  hundred  talents  more  than  the  fixed 
rate  of  tribute.  Besides  these  sacrifices  the 
Jewish  king  was  obliged  to  deliver  up  Padi, 
the  Ekronite  king  whom  he  had  held  in 
captivity,  and  was  forced  to  surrender  cer- 
tain parts  of  his  territories  to  the  neighbor- 
ing Philistine  kings. 

After  this  triumph  over  Hezekiah,  Sen- 
nacherib returned  to  Nine^•eh,  and  in  the 
following  year,  B.  C.  700,  he  led  an  expe- 
dition into  Babylonia,  where  Merodach- 
Baladan,  with  the  aid  of  Susub,  a  Chaldaean 
prince,  had  again  risen  in  arms  against  the 
authority  of  the  Assyrian  monarch.  After 
defeating  Susub,  Sennacherib  marched  upon 
Beth-Yakin,  and  compelled  Merodach-Bal- 
adan  to  flee  for  refuge  to  one  of  the  islands 
of  the  Persian  Gulf,  leaving  his  brothers  and 
adherents  to  the  conqueror's  merc\-.  I'pon 
returning  to  Babylon,  Sennacherib  removed 
the  viceroy  Belibus,  whom  he  blamed  for 
disloyalty  or  incompetency,  appointing  in 
his  stead  his  own  eldest  son,  Asshur-inadi- 
su,  the  A.sordanes  of  Polyhistor,  and  the 
Aparanadius,  or  As.saranadius,  of  Ptolemy's 
Canon. 

The  dates  of  the  remaining  events  of  Sen- 
nacherib's reign  can  not  be  fixed  with  cer- 
tainty, Ptolemy's  Canon  taking  no  account 
of  an>'  subsequent  event  recorded  in  the 
inscriptions  of  this  reign.  It  is  believed  that 
his  .second  expedition  into  Palestine  occurred 


174 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


B.  C.  699,  Hezekiah  having  again  revolted 
against  the  Assyrian  king,  and  entered  into 
an  alliance  with  the  Ethiopian  King  of 
Eg>-pt,  Tehrak,  or  Tirhakah.  Sennacherib 
direcfled  his  expedition  first  against  his  more 
powerful  foe,  and  marched  his  amiy  through 
Palestine  southwards  to  Libnah  and  Lach- 
ish,  laying  siege  to  the  latter  city,  and  send- 
ing a  detachment  of  his  army,  under  a  Tar- 
tan, or  general,  supported  by  two  high  officers 
of  his  court — the  Rabshakeh,  or  Chief  Cup- 
bearer, and  the  Rab-saris,  or  Chief  Eunuch 
— to  demand  the  surrender  of  Jerusalem. 
Hezekiah  sent  high  dignitaries  to  treat  with 
the  Assyrians  encamped  outside  the  city 
walls,  but  the  Assj-rian  envoys  demanded 
the  unconditional  submission  of  the  Jewish 
king  and  people.  The  Rabshakeh,  or  Chief 
Cupbearer,  familiar  with  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage, took  the  word  and  delivered  the 
message  in  insolent  phraseology,  laughing 
at  Hezekiah's  simplicity  in  relying  upon 
Egypt,  and  at  his  foolish  superstition  in  de- 
pending upon  a  Divine  deliverance,  and  defi- 
antly asking  the  Jewish  king  to  produce 
two  thousand  disciplined  soldiers  capable  of 
serving  as  horsemen.  Then  the  prophet 
"  Isaiah  said  unto  them,  Thus  shall  ye  say 
unto  your  master,  Thus  saith  the  Lord, 
'  Be  not  afraid  of  the  words  which  thou  hast 
heard,  with  which  the  servants  of  the  King 
of  Assyria  have  blasphemed  me.  Behold,  I 
will  send  a  blast  upon  him,  and  he  shall 
hear  a  rumor,  and  shall  return  to  his  own 
land;  and  I  will  cause  him  to  fall  by  the 
sword  in  his  own  land. '  ' '  When  asked  to 
speak  in  some  other  language  rather  than 
the  Hebrew,  for  fear  that  the  people  upon 
the  walls  might  hear,  the  intrepid  envoy,  in 
utter  disregard  of  diplomatic  courtesy,  made 
a  loud  and  diredl  appeal  to  the  fears  and 
hopes  of  the  people.  Seeing  that  they 
could  make  no  impression  upon  the  Jewish 
king  or  people,  and  regarding  their  military 
detachment  as  inadequate  for  a  siege,  the 
Assyrian  amba.ssadors  returned  to  their  sov- 
ereign at  Libnah  and  informed  him  of  their 
failure.  Thereupon  Sennacherib  sent  other 
mes.sengers  with  a  letter  to  Hezekiah,  re- 
minding him  of  the  fate  of  other  kingdoms 


and  nations  which  had  the  hardihood  to  re- 
sist the  mighty  Assyrian  power,  and  again 
urging  the  Jewish  king  to  submit.  Heze- 
kiah took  this  letter  iuto  the  Temple,  where 
he  "spread  it  before  the  Lord,"  praying: 
"  Lord,  bow  down  thine  ear,  and  hear;  open. 
Lord,  thine  eyes,  and  see;  and  hear  the 
words  of  Sennacherib,  which  hath  sent  him 
to  reproach  the  living  God."  Thereupon 
the  prophet  Isaiah  declared  to  his  afBidled 
sovereign  that  Jehovah  would  "put  his 
hook  in  Sennacherib's  nose,  and  his  bridle 
in  his  lips,  and  turn  him  back  by  the  way 
by  which  he  came."  The  prophet  further 
declared:  "Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord 
concerning  the  King  of  Assyria,  He  shall 
not  come  into  this  city,  nor  shoot  an  arrow 
there,  nor  come  before  it  with  shield,  nor 
cast  a  bank  against  it.  By  the  way  that  he 
came,  by  the  same  shall  he  return,  and  shall 
not  come  into  this  city,  saith  the  Lord. 
For  I  will  defend  this  city,  to  .save  it,  for  mine 
own  sake,  and  for  my  .ser\'ant  David's  sake." 
After  receiving  the  submission  of  Libnah, 
Sennacherib  advanced  toward  Egypt,  and 
had  come  within  sight  of  the  Egyptian  army 
at  Pelusium  when  Hezekiah  received  his  let- 
ter and  made  the  prayer  to  which  Lsaiah  de- 
livered the  response.  The  immense  host  of 
the  Egyptians  and  Assyrians  encamped  op- 
posite each  other  for  the  night,  the  Egyptians 
and  their  king  full  of  anxious  alarm,  and 
Sennacherib  and  his  Assyrians  in  proud  con- 
fidence of  a  vi(5lor>^  on  the  morrow  as  grand 
as  those  of  Raphia  and  Altaku.  But  these 
bright  hopes  were  destined  to  sad  disappoint- 
ment. Ere  the  morrow  appeared  the  im- 
mense Assyrian  host  was  destroyed  in  a 
night  panic.  Says  the  Hebrew  record: 
"And  it  came  to  pass  that  night,  that  the 
angel  of  the  Lord  went  out,  and  smote  in 
the  camp  of  the  Assyrians  an  hundred  four- 
score and  five  thousand ;  and  when  they  aro.se 
early  in  the  morning,  behold,  they  were  all 
dead  corpses. ' '  While  the  Hebrews  ascribed 
this  destrucflion  of  Sennacherib's  army  to 
the  miraculous  interpo.sition  of  Jehovah,  the 
Eg3'ptians  regarded  their  deliverance  as  the 
special  inter\-ention  of  their  own  gods,  and 
pursued  the  fleeing  Assyrian  hosts,  distress- 


POLITICAL  HIS  roR ) : 


175 


iug  their  retreating  columns  and  cutting 
off  stragglers.  The  haughty  Sennacherib 
returned  to  Nineveh  with  the  shattered  rem- 
nants of  his  mighty  host,  shorn  of  his 
glory.  The  proud  capital  of  Assyria  was 
plunged  into  such  grief  and  despair  as  is 
beyond  the  power  of  the  historian  to  describe. 
The  Assyrian  annals  say  nothing  of  this  dis- 
astrous campaign. 

According  to  Sennacherib's  own  annals, 
his  fifth  campaign  was  in  a  mountainous 
country  called  Nipur,  or  Nibur,  supposed  to 
be  near  Mount  Ararat.  He  there  took  many 
towns,  and  then  moving  westward  toward  the 
Taurus  range  bordering  on  Cilicia,  he  war- 
red with  Maniya,  King  of  Dayan,  and,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  boast,  plundered  and  rav- 
aged the  country^  burned  the  towns  and  car- 
ried away  the  inhabitants,  their  flocks  and 
herds,  and  their  valuables. 

His  next  contest  was  a  fierce  struggle  of 
three  years  with  the  Babylonians  and  Susi- 
anians.  The  Chaldaians  of  Beth-Yakin,  dis- 
satisfied with  the  Assyrian  yoke,  migrated 
in  a  body  from  their  own  city  to  the  territory^ 
of  the  King  of  Susiana.  Carrying  with  them 
their  gods  and  their  treasures,  they  set  sail 
in  their  ships,  crossed  "the  Great  Sea  of  the 
Rising  Sun" — the  Persian  Gulf — and  landed 
on  the  Elamite,  or  Susianian  coast,  where 
they  were  kindly  received  by  the  Susianian 
monarch,  who  allowed  them  to  build  a  new 
city  on  his  territon,-.  This  voluntary-  de- 
sertion of  Beth-Yakin  by  its  own  people 
aroused  the  anger  of  the  A.ssjrian  king,  who 
accordingly  determined  to  bring  back  his 
deserting  subjedls  to  their  native  city,  and 
to  his  dominion,  by  force. 

The  suzerainty  of  Assyria  over  Phoenicia 
had  placed  at  the  Assyrian  king's  disposal 
the  most  skilled  shipwrights  and  the  best 
sailors  in  the  world,  and  Sennacherib  re- 
.solved  to  invade  Susiana  by  sea  to  reclaim 
his  emigrant  subjects.  The  shipwrights  of 
Tyre  and  Sidon  \\-ere  therefore  set  to  work 
at  building  a  fleet  of  war-galleys  on  the 
Tigris.  This  fleet,  manned  by  Phoenician 
sailors,  descended  the  river  to  the  Persian 
Gulf  astonishing  the  inhabitants  on  the 
shores  with  a  spectacle  ne\-er  before  seen  in 


tho.se  waters.  The  Chaldacans,  who  had 
navigated  tho.se  waters  for  many  centuries, 
were  far  inferior  as  ship-builders  and  mari- 
ners to  the  Phoenicians,  who.se  ships  with 
their  masts,  sails,  double  tiers  of  oars  and 
shaq)  beaks,  were  novelties  to  the  nations 
in  these  parts. 

Sennacherib,  in  his  Phoenician  ships, 
crossed  from  the  mouth  of  the  Tigris  to  the 
new  settlement  of  the  emigrant  Chaldacans, 
destroyed  their  newly-built  city,  captured 
the  deserters,  ravaged  the  vicinity,  burned 
many  Susianian  towns,  and  transported  his 
captives,  Chaldaean  deserters  and  Susian- 
ians,  across  the  gulf  to  Chaldaea,  and  thence 
took  them  to  A.ssyria.  The  Susianians,  not 
expecting  an  invasion  b}-  sea,  had  as.sembled 
an  army  near  their  north-western  frontier, 
so  that  Sennacherib  had  found  no  force  to 
oppose  him  when  he  landed  on  the  Susianian 
coast. 

Taking  advantage  of  circumstances,  the 
Babylonians  now  revolted  and  .set  up  a  king 
of  their  own  called  Susub;  but  the  Babylon- 
ian army  was  defeated  by  the  Assyrian 
troops  upon  their  return  from  Susiana,  Su- 
sub being  captured;  and  the  Susianian  army 
which  had  come  to  the  aid  of  the  revolted 
Babylonians  was  routed.  Susub  and  many 
other  captives  were  carried  to  Nineveh. 

Kudur-Nakhunta,  who  was  still  King  of 
Susiana,  held  the  cities  of  Beth-Kahiri  and 
Raza,  which  Sennacherib  regarded  as  part 
of  his  paternal  inheritance.  The  Assyrian 
king  now  easily  retook  the.se  towns,  and 
leading  his  anny  into  the  heart  of  Susiana, 
took  and  burned  thirty-four  large  cities  and 
many  small  villages.  After  besieging  and 
taking  by  storm  Vadakat,  or  Badaca,  the 
.second  city  of  Susiana,  after  it  had  been 
abandoned  by  Kudur-Xakhunta,  Sennach- 
erib returned  to  Nine\eh  with  a  large  booty. 

Susub,  the  Babylonian  prince,  having  es- 
caped from  his  captivity  at  Nineveh,  re- 
turned to  Babylon,  where  he  was  again 
hailed  as  king  by  the  inhabitants.  He  se- 
cured the  alliance  of  the  new  King  of  .Susiana, 
ITmmanniinan,  the  \onnger  brother  and  suc- 
cessor of  Kudur-Nakhunta,  by  sending  him 
as  a  present  the  gold  and  silver  belonging 


176 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


to  the  great  temple  of  Bel  at  Babylon.  The 
Susianian  monarch  at  once  led  an  ami}-  to 
the  Tigris,  while  many  Aranijean,  or  Syrian, 
tribes  on  the  middle  Euphrates,  which  Sen- 
nacherib had  subjugated  in  his  third  year, 
revolted,  and  their  army  joined  that  of  Su- 
sub.  Sennacherib  defeated  the  allied  host 
in  a  great  battle  at  Khaluli,  a  town  on  the 
Lower  Tigris,  both  Susub  and  the  Susianian 
king  escaping,  but  Nebosumiskun,  a  son  of 
Merodach-Baladan,  and  many  other  chiefs, 
being  made  prisoners.  Sennacherib  entered 
Bab>-lon  in  triumph,  destroyed  its  fortifica- 
tions, pillaged  and  burned  its  temples, 
and  broke  to  pieces  the  images  of  the 
gods.  Either  Regibelus,  or  Mesesimor- 
dachus,  whom  the  Canon  of  Ptolemy  makes 
contemporary  with  the  middle  part  of  Sen- 
nacherib's reign,  is  believed  to  have  been 
placed  o^'er  the  rebel  citj'  as  viceroj-  by  the 
conqueror. 

Sennacherib  is  said  to  have  also  led  an  ex- 
pedition against  Cilicia,  and,  according  to 
Abydenus,  a  Greek  writer,  a  Grecian  fleet 
was  beaten  by  the  Assyrian  fleet  on  the  Ci- 
lician  shores;  while  according  to  Polyhistor, 
Sennacherib's  army  defeated  a  Greek  land 
force  in  Cilicia  itself;  after  which  Sennach- 
erib took  possession  of  Cilicia,  in  which 
country  he  built  the  city  of  Tarsus,  after- 
wards renowned  as  the  birth-place  of  St. 
Paul.  Among  the  inscriptions  of  Sennach- 
erib's wars  upon  the  Koyunjik  bulls  is  one 
stating  that  he  "  triumphanth"  subdued  the 
men  of  Cilicia  inhabiting  the  inaccessible 
forests. ' ' 

The  Canon  of  Ptolemy  marks  an  interreg- 
num at  Babylon  for  eight  years,  from  B.  C. 
688  to  B.  C.  680,  the  year  of  Esar-haddon's 
accession;  from  which  circumstance  it  is 
evident  that  Babylonia  had  again  thrown  off 
the  Assyrian  yoke  and  maintained  her  inde- 
pendence for  eight  3'ears. 

Thus  the  military  glory  of  Sennacherib, 
the  greatest  and  best-known  of  Assyrian 
kings,  was  tarnished  by  two  great  disasters 
— the  destruction  of  his  anny  at  Pelusium  by 
a  night  panic  during  his  war  with  Hezekiah 
of  Judah  and  Tirhakah  of  Egypt,  and  the 
successful  revolt  of  Bal)ylon  just  mentioned. 


Still  he  was  the  most  illustrious  and  the  most 
successful  of  Assyrian  warrior  kings.  In 
his  inscription,  Sennacherib  calls  himself 
"the  great  king,  the  powerful  king,  the  king 
of  nations,  the  king  of  Assyria,  the  king  of 
the  four  regions,  the  diligent  ruler,  the 
favorite  of  the  great  gods,  the  observer  of 
sworn  faith,  the  guardian  of  the  law, 
the  embellisher  of  public  buildings,  the 
noble  hero,  the  strong  warrior,  the  first  of 
kings,  the  punisher  of  unbelievers,  the  de- 
stroyer of  wicked  men. ' ' 

Sennacherib  takes  the  first  rank  among 
Ass5'rian  monarchs  as  an  architedl  and 
patron  of  art,  as  well  as  that  of  a  warrior. 
The  gigantic  palace  erecfled  by  him  at  Nin- 
eveh surpassed  ni  dimensions  and  grandeur 
all  previouslj'-built  strucftures,  and  covered 
an  area  of  more  than  eight  acres.  The  grand 
halls  and  smaller  chambers  of  this  vast  and 
magnificent  edifice  were  arranged  around  at 
least  three  courts  or  quadrangles,  which  were 
respectively  one  hundred  and  fiftj'-four  bj-  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  feet,  one  hundred 
and  twenty-four  by  ninety  feet,  and  ninety- 
three  by  eighty-four  feet.  Small  apartments 
were  grouped  around  the  smallest  of  these 
courts.  A  narrow  passage  leading  out  of  a 
long  galler\',  two  hundred  and  eighteen  by 
twenty-five  feet,  opened  the  way  to  the 
king's  seraglio.  This  galler}-  was  entered 
through  two  other  passages,  one  leading  from 
each  of  the  two  main  courts.  The  principal 
halls  were  immediately  within  the  two  chief 
entrances,  one  on  the  north-east,  and  the 
other  on  the  south-west  front  of  the  palace. 
One  of  these  seems  to  have  been  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  feet  long,  and  the  other  one 
hundred  and  eighty  feet,  while  each  was  a 
little  over  fortj'  feet  wide.  The  palace  had 
about  twent}'  other  rooms,  and  from  forty  to 
fift}-  smaller  chambers,  about  square,  entered 
from  some  hall  or  large  apartment.  Mr. 
Eayard  saj^s  he  explored  seventy-one  cham- 
bers, including  the  three  courts,  the  long 
gallery  and  four  passages. 

Sennacherib's  palace,  like  other  A.ssyrian 
architecflural  works,  was  built  on  an  artifi- 
cial platform,  eighty  or  ninetj'  feet  above 
the  plain,  and  covered  with  a  brick  pave- 


POl.  I  TIC  A  L    If  IS  7  Y  )A' } '. 


'77 


ment.  It  is  believed  to  have  had  three 
grand  facades,  respectively  on  the  north- 
east, south-east  and  south-west  sides.  Its 
chief  apartment  was  first  entered  by  the 
visitor.  All  the  walls  ran  in  straight  lines, 
and  all  the  angles  of  the  rooms  were  right 
angles.  Although  there  were  numerous  pas- 
sages, the  apartments  in  many  instances  di- 
rec5tly  opened  into  one  another,  nearly  half 
of  the  rooms  being  passage-rooms.  The 
doorwaj-s  were  usuall\-  towards  the  comers 
of  the  apartments.  In  many  ca.ses  a  room 
was  entered  b}-  two  or  three  doorways  from 
another  room  or  from  a  court.  There  were 
also  many  square  recesses  in  the  sides  of 
rooms.  The  walls  were  ^■er^•  thick.  The 
apartments,  never  much  over  fortN"  feet  wide, 
were  comparatively  narrow  for  their  length, 
but  the  courts  were  much  better  propor- 
tioned. 

Sennacherib's  royal  building  differed  from 
others  in  the  size  and  luimber  of  its  rooms, 
in  its  u.se  of  pa.ssages  and  in  its  style  of  or- 
namentation. His  principal  state  apart- 
ments were  one-third  wider,  though  very 
little  longer,  and  thus  were  in  better  pro- 
portion. But  one  galler\-,  coiuiecling  the 
more  public  portion  of  the  building  with  the 
harem,  or  private  apartments,  foniied  a  cor- 
ridor, two  hundred  and  eighteen  feet  long 
b}-  twenty-five  feet  wide,  iniiting  the  two 
parts  of  the  palace.  This  corridor  commun- 
icated by  passages  with  the  two  public 
courts,  which  were  also  joined  by  a  third 
passage.  Timber  from  Lebanon  and  Amanus 
was  used  in  the  roofing  of  this  palace. 

Sennacherib's  ornamentation  was  marked 
by  the  first  general  use  of  the  back-ground 
in  completing  each  scene,  as  it  really  existed 
at  the  time  and  place  of  its  occurrence. 
Mountains,  rocks,  trees,  roads,  rivers  and 
lakes  were  represented  with  the  highest  de- 
gree of  perfection  which  the  ability  of  the 
artist  and  the  means  and  facilities  at  his 
command  would  permit.  In  Sennacherib's 
bas-reliefs  the  species  of  trees  is  distin- 
guished; gardens,  fields,  ponds,  reeds,  etc., 
are  portrayed  with  great  exadtness;  wild 
animals,  such  as  stags,  boars  and  antelojies, 
are  illustrated;  birds  are  represented  flying 


from  one  tree  to  another,  or  standing  over 
their  nests  feeding  their  young  as  they 
stretch  u])  to  receive  the  food;  fi.sh  swim 
in  the  water;  fishermen,  boatmen  and  agri- 
cultural laborers  are  depicted;  the  entire 
scene  being  striking  and  real  in  appearance. 

On  the  walls  of  the  passages  of  Sennach- 
erib's palace  are  depicted  ordinary  .scenes  of 
every-day  life.  Trains  of  ,ser\auts  daily 
bring  to  the  royal  residence  game  and  locusts 
for  the  monarch's  diinier,  and  cakes  and 
fruits  for  his  dessert,  just  as  they  walked 
through  the  courts  canying  the  delicacies 
for  which  he  displaj-ed  special  fondness.  In 
another  place  is  exhibited  the  work  of  car\'- 
ing  and  transporting  a  gigantic  bull  of  .solid 
stone,  from  tlie  removal  of  the  material  from 
the  quarry,  to  its  elevated  position  on  a 
palace-mound  as  part  of  the  great  entrance- 
passage  of  the  ro\-al  dwelling.  The  trackers 
are  shown  dragging  the  huge  rough  block, 
supported  on  a  low  flat-bottomed  boat,  along 
the  course  of  a  river,  divided  in  gangs  per- 
forming their  work  under  taskmasters  who 
ply  their  rods  upon  the  most  trifling  provo- 
cation. The  trackers,  three  hundred  in 
number,  in  their  national  costumes,  are  each 
delineated  with  the  utmost  precision.  We 
next  see  the  stone  block  conveyed  to  land, 
and  carved  into  the  rough  likeness  of  a  bull, 
and  in  that  shape  it  is  set  on  a  sledge  and 
mo^•ed  along  le-vel  ground  by  gangs  of 
laborers,  arranged  \"ery  much  as  before,  to 
the  base  of  the  mound,  at  the  top  of  which 
it  must  be  located.  The  building  of  the 
mound  is  illustrated  in  detail.  Brick-makers 
are  represented  moulding  the  bricks  at  the 
foot  of  the  mound,  and  workmen  are  seen 
with  baskets  at  their  backs,  filled  with  earth, 
bricks,  stones  or  rubbi.sh,  climbing  the  as- 
cent after  the  mound  is  partially  raised,  and 
emptying  their  burdens  upon  the  top.  The 
bull  on  the  sledge  is  then  drawn  up  an  in- 
clined plane  to  the  summit  by  four  gangs  of 
laborers,  before  the  eyes  of  the  king  and  his 
attendants.  The  carving  is  then  finished, 
and  the  gigantic  figure  is  set  into  an  upright 
position  and  dragged  along  the  surface  of  the 
platform  to  the  place  assigned  it. 

Sennacherib   also  restored  the  old   nnal 


178 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


palace  at  Nineveh.  He  built  a  brick  em- 
bankment on  the  banks  of  the  Tigris  to  con- 
fine the  river  to  its  channel,  and  supplied 
his  capital  with  good  water  by  construcfting 
for  that  purpose  a  system  of  canals  and 
aquedu(5ls.  He  strengthened  the  defenses 
of  Nineveh  by  the  erecftion  of  colossal 
towers  at  some  of  the  brick  gateways. 
Lastly,  he  eredled  a  temple  to  the  god  Ner- 
gal  at  Tarbisi  (now  Sherif  KhanJ,  on  the 
Tigris,  about  three  miles  above  Nineveh. 

Sennacherib's  conquering  expeditions  into 
other  lands  furnished  him  with  a  sufficient 
amount  of  forced  labor,  which  he  employed 
in  the  construdtion  of  his  great  works.  The 
Bellino  Cylinder  tells  us  that  he  employed 
Chaldseans,  Aramaeans,  or  Syrians,  Armeni- 
ans, Cilicians,  and  Quhu,  or  Coans,  in  this 
way.  A  bull-inscription  informs  us  that  in 
one  raid  he  carried  into  slavery  two  hun- 
dred and  eight  thousand  Aramaeans.  By 
this  means  the  colossal  bulls  of  stone  were 
transported  and  elevated,  the  vast  mounds 
built,  the  bricks  moulded,  the  walls  of  edi- 
fices erecfted,  the  canals  excavated  and  em- 
bankments construcfted.  They  were  forced 
to  labor  in  gangs,  under  the  rods  of  brutal 
and  exacfting  taskmasters,  and  in  their  re- 
specftive  national  costumes.  The  work  was 
direcfted  by  Assyrian  foremen,  and  the 
forced  laborers  were  frequently  compelled  to 
work  in  fetters,  sometimes  supported  bj-  a 
bar  fastened  to  the  waist,  and  sometimes 
consisting  of  shackles  around  the  ankles. 
The  king,  standing  in  a  chariot  drawn  by 
his  attendants,  often  witnessed  the  laborers 
at  their  task. 

Sennacherib's  glorious  reign  of  twenty- 
four  years  experienced  a  sad  end.  The 
great  monarch  fell  a  vicflim  to  a  plot  of  as- 
sassination on  the  part  of  his  sons,  Adram- 
melech  and  Sharezer.  He  was  slain  while 
at  worship  in  a  temple;  and  his  son  Nergilus, 
who  claimed  the  crown,  was  also  soon  mur- 
dered by  his  brothers,  Adrannnelech  and 
Sharezer;  but  these  were  soon  overthrown 
by  their  brother  Esar-haddon,  who,  in  com- 
mand of  the  army  on  the  Armenian  frontier, 
marched  to  Nineveh  and  was  recognized  as 
the  rightful  successor  to  his  father's  throne. 


The  year  of  Sennacherib's  assassination 
and  Esar-haddon's  accession  was  B.  C.  68i, 
according  to  the  Assyrian  Canon — the  year 
just  before  his  first  year  in  Babylon  on  the 
authority  of  the  Canon  of  Ptolemy.  This  is 
to  be  accounted  for  by  the  facft  that  a  king 
was  not  entered  on  the  Babylonian  list  until 
the  Thoth  which  followed  his  accession,  and 
the  Thoth  in  this  instance  occurred  in  Feb- 
ruar3'.  Thus  the  Babylonian  dates  are  gen- 
erally one  year  later  than  the  Assyrian,  and 
the  two  Canons  are  seen  to  harmonize  with 
remarkable  precision. 

Esar-haddon  held  the  throne  for  thirteen 
years,  and  reigned  alternately  at  Nineveh 
and  Babylon,  thus  placing  the  two  great 
capitals  on  an  equality,  and  reconciling  the 
Babylonians  to  the  Assyrian  rule.  Esar- 
haddon's  inscriptions  show  that  he  was  en- 
gaged for  some  time  after  the  opening  of  his 
reign  in  a  civil  war  with  his  half-brothers, 
who,  at  the  head  of  large  bodies  of  troops, 
contested  his  claims  to  the  Assyrian  crown. 
Esar-haddon,  who,  at  the  time  of  his  father's 
death,  was  stationed  on  the  Armenian  front- 
ier, at  once  marched  upon  Nineveh,  defeated 
the  army  of  his  brothers  in  the  country  of 
Khanirabbat,  north-west  of  Nineveh,  and 
entered  the  capital,  where  he  was  univer- 
sally acknowledged  king.  Abydenus  says 
that  Adrammelech  fell  in  the  battle,  but  bet- 
ter authorities  state  that  both  he  and  his 
brother  Sharezer  escaped  into  Armenia, 
where  the  ruling  sovereign  treated  them 
with  kindness,  bestowing  upon  them  lands, 
which  long  remained  in  the  possession  of 
their  po.sterity. 

Our  information  of  Esar-haddon's  reign 
is  mainly  derived  from  a  cylinder  inscrip- 
tion, existing  in  duplicate,  which  records 
nine  campaigns.  A  memorial  which  he  set 
up  at  the  mouth  of  the  Nahr-el-Kelb,  and  a 
cylinder  of  his  son's,  give  us  .some  additional 
knowledge  concerning  the  closing  portion 
of  his  reign.  The  Old  Testament,  in  .several 
in.stances,  connedls  him  with  Jewish  history'; 
and  Abydenus  alludes  to  some  of  his  for- 
eign conquests.  An  incomplete  cylinder 
inscription  of  Esar-haddon's  reign  contains 
accounts  of  his  civil  war  with   his  brothers 


POI.TTIC.M.    I  [[STORY. 


179 


and  also  his  Arabian  and  Syrian  uxpeditions. 

Ksar-liaddon's  first  expedition  was  into 
Phoenicia.  The  civil  dissensions  resulting 
from  vSeniKicherib's  murder  encouraged  a  re- 
volt in  that  region  on  the  part  of  Abdi-Mil- 
kut,  King  of  Sidon,  and  Sandu-arra,  King  of 
the  neighboring  portion  of  Lebanon,  who  had 
entered  into  an  alliance  to  cast  off  the  Assjt- 
ian  yoke.  Esar-haddon  first  attacked  Sidon 
and  .soon  took  the  city,  and  Abdi-Milkut 
sought  refuge  in  an  island,  either  Aradus  or 
Cyprus,  but  was  pursued  and  made  prisoner 
by  Esar-haddon,  who,  it  was  said,  traversed 
the  .sea  "like  a  fish."  Esar-haddon  next  at- 
tacked Sandu-arra  in  his  mountain  fastnesses, 
defeated  his  troops  and  took  him  prisoner. 
Both  captive  kings  were  executed  in  punish- 
ment for  their  rebellion;  the  walls  of  Sidon 
were  destroyed,  its  inhabitants  and  tho.se  of 
the  whole  neighboring  coast  were  carried 
off  into  Assyria,  and  thence  dispersed  among 
the  provinces:  while  a  new  city  was  built 
and  named  after  Esar-haddon,  which  was 
designed  to  succeed  Sidon  as  the  leading 
city  in  this  region,  and  Chaldtean  and  .Susi- 
anian  captives  were  colonized  in  the  new 
city  and  the  adjacent  country,  over  which 
an  As.syrian  governor  was  appointed. 

Esar-haddon' s  second  campaign  was  in 
Armenia,  where  he  took  a  city  named  Arza, 
which,  he  says,  was  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Muzr,  and  carried  away  its  inhabitants,  along 
with  a  number  of  mountain  animals,  settling 
the  captives  "beyond  the  eastern  gate  of 
Nineveh."  At  the  same  time  he  received 
the  submission  of  Tiuspa,  the  Cimmerian. 

Esar-haddon's  third  campaign  was  in 
Cilicia  and  the  adjacent  regions.  The  Cili- 
cians,  so  recently  subdued  by  Sennacherib, 
re-asserted  their  independence  at  his  death, 
and  formed  an  alliance  with  the  Tibareni, 
or  people  of  Tubal,  who  occupied  the  high 
mountain  district  about  the  junction  of 
Amanus  and  Taurus.  After  defeating  the 
Cilicians,  Esar-haddon  invaded  the  moun- 
tain region,  where  he  took  twenty-one  towns 
and  many  villages,  all  of  which  he  plundered 
and  burned,  carrying  the  inhabitants  into 
captivity. 

Esar-haddon  next  conducted  a  pett\-  war 


in  Northern  Syria,  and  another  in  South- 
eastern Armenia  against  the  Mainiai,  or 
Minni.  He  then  made  an  expedition  into 
Chaktea,  against  Nebo-zirzi-sidi,  Merodach- 
Baladan's  son,  who,  aided  by  the  Susianians, 
had  regained  a  footing  on  the  Chaldaean 
coast:  while  his  brothcj-  >Jahid-Marduk, 
sought  the  favor  of  the  Assyrian  king,  quit- 
ting his  refuge  in  vSusiana  to  present  himself 
before  the  Great  King's  foot-stool  at  Nineveh. 
After  subduing  Nebo-zirzi-sidi,  E.sar-haddon 
bestowed  the  entire  coast  distri<fl  previously 
ruled  by  that  prince  on  Nahid-Marduk.  At 
the  .same  time  the  Assyrian  king  depo.sed 
Shamas-ipni,  a  Chaldaean  prince,  who  had 
extended  his  .sway  over  a  small  town  in  the 
vicinity  of  Babylon,  putting  Nebo-sallim 
in  his  place.  Esar-haddon  next  engaged  in 
a  war  with  Edom,  where  he  took  a  city  bear- 
ing the  .same  name  as  the  country — a  city, 
which  he  saj^s,  had  been  previously  taken  by 
his  father — tran.sporting  the  inhabitants  into 
Assyria,  and  carrying  away  certain  of  the 
Edomite  gods.  Thereupon  the  Edomite  king,  . 
Hazael,  sent  an  embassy  to  Nineveh,  to  offer 
submission  and  presents,  while  he  also  beg- 
ged the  Assyrian  monarch  to  restore  his  gods 
and  permit  them  to  be  returned  to  Edom. 
This  humble  request  was  granted  by  Esar- 
haddon,  who  restored  the  images  to  the  en- 
voy :  but  he  increased  the  annual  tribute  hy 
.sixty-five  camels,  and  appointed  to  the  suc- 
cession, or  joint  sovereignty  of  the  throne  of 
Edom,  a  woman  named  Tabua,  who  had  been 
bom  and  brought  up  in  his  own  palace. 

E.sar-haddon's  next  expedition  was  into  a 
country  named  Bazu,  said  to  be  "remote,  on 
the  extreme  confines  of  the  earth,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  desert. ' '  This  countrj-  was 
reached  by  traversing  a  hundred  and  forty 
farsakhs  (four  hundred  and  ninety  miles)  of 
sandy  desert,  then  twenty  farsaklis  (seventy 
miles)  of  fertile  land,  and  beyond  that  a  stony 
region.  None  of  Esar-haddon's  predecessors 
had  ever  penetrated  so  far  "into  the  middle 
of  Arabia."  Bazu  was  located  Iieyond  Kha- 
zu,  the  .stony  tract,  and  its  ])rincii)al  city  was 
Yedih,  which  was  ruled  by  a  king  named 
Laile.  The  country  here  noticed  is  supposed 
to  have  been  the  region  of  the  modem  Ara- 


i8o 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


bian  kingdom  of  Hira.  Esar-haddon  boasts 
that  he  marched  into  the  middle  of  this  re- 
gion, that  he  slew  eight  of  its  kings,  and  car- 
ried their  gods,  their  treasures  and  their  sub- 
jects into  Assyria;  and  that  Laile's  gods  were 
also  conveyed  to  Nineveh,  though  Laile  him- 
self escaped.  Laile,  like  the  Edomite  monarch 
went  to  Nineveh,  and,  prostrating  himself  at 
the  foot-stool  of  the  Assyrian  king,  humbly 
requested  the  return  of  the  images  of  his 
gods.  This  request  Esar-haddon  granted,  but 
only  on  the  condition  that  Laile  became  one 
of  his  tributaries.  In  this  invasion  of  Arabia, 
Esar-haddon  led  an  army  across  the  deserts 
which  enclose  that  country  on  the  land  side, 
and  penetrated  to  the  more  fertile  tra(5ts  be- 
yond them,  a  region  of  cities  and  fixed  set- 
tlements, where  he  took  towns  and  carried 
off  their  plunder  to  Assyria.  This  invasion 
was  a  most  remarkable  success,  taking  in 
account  the  natural  perils  of  the  desert,  and 
the  warlike  character  of  its  inhabitants,  who 
have  never  fully  bowed  to  the  yoke  of  anj' 
foreign  conqueror.  The  dangers  of  the  si- 
moom and  the  aridity  of  the  northern  portion 
of  Arabia,  with  the  difficulty  of  carrj-ing 
water  and  provisions  for  a  large  army,  and 
the  perils  of  plunging  into  the  wilderness 
with  a  small  one,  have  deterred  most  Oriental 
conquerors  from  e\-en  the  thought  of  leading 
an  expedition  into  this  dreary  and  desolate 
region.  Esar-haddon  is  the  only  monarch 
who  ever  ventured  upon  the  hazardous  un- 
dertaking of  penetrating  in  person  into  this 
vast  de.sert  land. 

Esar-haddon  next  in\-aded  the  marshy 
region  on  the  Euphrates,  where  the  Ara- 
maean tribe  of  Gamljulu  dwelt,  as  he  says, 
"like  fish,  in  the  mid.st  of  the  waters." 
The  sheikh  of  this  tribe  had  revolted,  but 
submitted  on  the  approach  of  the  Assyrian 
monarch,  bringing  in  person  the  arrears  of 
his  tribute  and  a  present  of  buffaloes,  thereby 
seeking  to  propitiate  his  suzerain.  Esar- 
haddon  says  that  he  forgave  him,  and 
strengthened  his  capital  with  fresh  works 
of  defense  and  garrisoned  it,  making  it  a 
stronghold  to  protedl  the  country  against 
the  attacks  of  the  vSusianians. 

Esar-haddon's  last  expedition  recorded  on 


his  principal  cylinder,  which  was  not  appar- 
ently led  by  the  king  personally,  was  against 
the  country  of  Bikni,  or  Bikan,  a  remote 
part  of  Media,  supposed  to  be  Azerbijan. 
None  of  his  predecessors  ever  penetrated 
this  region,  which  was  governed  by  many 
petty  chiefs,  each  of  whom  ruled  over  his 
own  town  and  its  surrounding  territory,  and 
whose  names  illustrate  their  Aryan  charac- 
ter. Esar-haddon  carried  two  of  these 
chiefs  captive  to  As.S5'ria,  whereupon  the 
others  submitted,  agreeing  to  pay  tribute 
and  to  share  their  power  with  Assyrian  of- 
ficers. 

The  various  expeditions  of  Esar-haddon 
already  described  have  been  made  known 
to  us  from  his  cylinder  inscriptions;  but  his 
conquest  of  Egypt  and  his  punishment  and 
pardon  of  Manasseh,  King  of  Judah — the 
greatest  and  most  interesting  events  of  his 
reign — have  been  brought  to  our  knowledge 
from  other  sources.  All  that  \\'e  know  of 
the  circumstances  of  Esar-haddon's  con- 
quest of  Egypt  is  derived  from  an  imperfecft 
transcript  of  the  Nahr-el-Kelb  tablet,  and 
the  brief  annals  of  his  son  and  successor, 
Asshur-bani-pal,  who  alludes  to  his  father's 
proceedings  in  Egypt,  for  the  purpose  of 
making  known  the  condition  of  affairs  when 
he  himself  invaded  that  country. 

It  thus  appears  that  Esar-haddon  led  a 
large  army  into  Egypt  about  B.  C.  670,  won 
a  great  vicftory  over  the  forces  of  Tirhakah, 
or  Tehrak,  the  reigning  Ethiopian  sovereign 
of  that  country,  took  Memphis,  his  capital, 
and  conquered  the  entire  Nile  valley  as  far 
southward  as  Thebes,  taking  Thebes  itself. 
Tirhakah  fled  into  Ethiopia,  leaving  Esar- 
haddon  master  of  all  Egypt  as  far  as  Thebes, 
the  Diospolis  of  the  Greeks  and  the  No,  or 
No- Anion,  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  con- 
quering Assyrian  king  weakened  Egypt  by 
dividing  the  country  into  twenty  govern- 
ments, appointing  a  petty  king  in  each 
town,  but  placing  all  the  others  under  the 
rule  of  the  prince  reigning  at  Memphis. 
This  Memphite  prince  was  Neko,  tlie  father 
of  Psammetichus,  or  Psamatik  I.,  a  native 
Egyptian  mentioned  both  by  Herodotus  and 
Manetho;   and  the  other  petty  kings  were 


poi.rricAi.   iiisrokv. 


i8i 


also  native  Egyptians,  with  a  few  excep- 
tions where  Assyrian  ollicers  were  appointed 
governors.  After  thus  arranging  the  gov- 
ernment of  Kgypt,  and  setting  up  his  tablet 
at  the  month  of  the  Nahr-el-Kelh  beside 
that  of  Rameses  the  Great,  I{sar-haddou  re- 
turned to  Assyria  and  began  to  introduce 
sphinxes  into  the  ornamentation  of  his  pal- 
aces, at  the  same  time  adding  to  his  previous 
titles  the  following:  "King  of  the  kings  of 
Egypt,  and  conqueror  of  ECthiopia."  This 
title  does  not  occur  on  the  cylinders,  but 
appears  on  the  back  of  the  slabs  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  south-west  palace  of  Nimrud, 
where  the  sphinxes  are  found,  and  also  on  a 
bronze  lion  dug  up  at  the  Nebbi-Yunus 
mound  of  Nineveh,  and  on  the  slabs  of 
Esar-haddon's  palace  at  Sherif-Klian. 

The  revolt  of  Manasseh,  King  of  Judah, 
occurring  about  the  time  of  Esar-haddon's 
conquest  of  Egypt,  was  suppressed  by  the 
"captains  of  the  host  of  the  King  of  As- 
syria." These  Assj'rian  generals  invaded 
Judah  to  subdue  Manasseh,  and  "took  and 
bound  him  with  chains,  and  carried  him  to 
Babylon,"  where  Esar-haddon  had  eredted 
a  palace  for  himself  and  frequently  held  his 
court.  The  Great  King  at  first  treated  his 
royal  captive  with  severity,  and  Manasseh's 
affliction  is  said  to  have  humbled  his  pride  and 
to  have  led  him  to  humiliate  himself  before 
Jehovah  and  to  repent  of  his  cruelties  and 
idolatries.  According  to  the  Book  of  Chron- 
icles, God  "was  entreated  of  him,  and  heard 
his  supplication,  and  brought  him  back 
again  to  Jerusalem  into  his  kingdom." 
Esar-haddon  generously  pardoned  Manasseh 
for  his  defedlion,  and  .sent  him  liack  to  Je- 
rusalem, restoring  him  to  his  throne,  on  the 
condition  of  paying  an  increased  tribute. 

To  augment  the  As.S3-rian  power  in  Pales- 
tine, Esar-haddon  determined  to  strengthen 
the  foreign  element  already  introduced  into 
the  country  by  Sargon,  \\'ho,  as  we  have 
seen,  colonized  Samaria  with  foreign  settlers 
from  Babylon,  Cutha,  Sippara,  Ava,  Ha- 
math  and  Arabia.  Esar-haddon  settled 
colonists  in  Palestine  coUedled  from  Babylon, 
Erech,  or  Orchoe,  .Susa,  Elymais,  Persia, 
and  other  surrounding  nations,  and  placing 

12 


them  under  an  officer  of  high  rank — "the 
great  and  noljle  Asnapper." 

When  iiltelligence  of  Esar-haddon's  ill- 
ness reached  Ivgypt  in  B.  C.  669,  Tirhakah, 
the  Ethiopian  king,  whom  Esar-haddon  had 
driven  out  of  ICgypt  the  previous  year,  at 
once  descended  the  Nile  from  Ethiopia, 
drove  out  the  petty  kings  set  over  Egypt  by 
the  Assyrian  monarch,  and  reestablished  his 
authority  over  all  ICgypt.  Esar-haddon 
thereupon  resigned  the  crown  of  Assyria  to 
his  son  Asshur-ljani-pal,  tint  retained  that 
of  Babylonia,  residing  in  Babylon  until  his 
death  shortly  afterward,  B.  C.  668,  when 
Asshur-bani-pal  succeeded  to  the  .sovereignty 
of  the  whole  empire. 

Esar-haddon  was  one  of  the  most  active 
of  Assyria's  royal  builders  and  architecfls. 
During  his  .short  reign  of  thirteen  years  he 
eredted  four  palaces  and  more  than  thirty 
temples.  Three  of  his  great  palaces  were 
located  respe(51:ively  at  Babylon,  Nineveh 
and  Calah;  but  that  at  Calah,  or  Nimrud,  is 
the  only  one  which  has  been  explored  to 
anj-  great  extent,  and  even  the  ground-plan 
of  that  has  been  but  imperfectly  traced. 
This  palace  had  never  been  fini.shed,  its 
ornamentation  had  hardly  been  commenced, 
and  the  .small  portion  of  this  that  was  orig- 
nal  had  been  so  .seriously  injured  by  a  de- 
struiftive  fire  that  it  perished  inunediately 
ujx)!!  its  disco^•er^^  We  must  therefore  rely 
for  our  knowledge  of  Esar-haddon's  .sculp- 
tures upon  the  report  of  jiersons  who  saw 
them  before  thej'  were  destroyed,  and  upon 
one  or  two  drawings;  and  our  only  knowl- 
edge of  the  palace  is  derived  from  a  half-e.x- 
plored  fragment  of  a  half-finished  palace 
destroyed  1)>-  the  flames  before  its  completion. 

Esar-haddon's  palace  at  Calah  was  built 
at  the  .south-western  corner  of  the  Nimrud 
mound,  abutting  towards  the  west  on  the 
Tigris,  and  towards  the  valley  formed  by 
the  vShor-Derreh  torrent.  It  faced  north- 
ward and  w.is  entered  on  this  side  from  the 
open  space  of  the  platform,  through  a  jiortal 
guarded  b)-  two  winged  man-headed  bulls. 
The  entrance  led  into  a  large  court,  two 
Innulred  and  eighty  by  one  hundred  feet, 
bounded  on  the  noith  side  by  a  mere  wall, 


I82 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


but  surrounded  by  buildings  on  the  east, 
west  and  south  sides.  The  chief  building 
was  opposite,  and  was  entered  from  the 
court  by  two  gateways,  one  direcftly  facing 
the  great  northern  portal  of  the  court,  and 
the  other  slightly  to  the  left,  the  former  be- 
ing guarded  by  colossal  winged  man-headed 
bulls,  and  the  latter  only  reveted  with 
slabs.  The.se  gateways  both  opened  into 
the  same  room,  the  design  of  which  was  on 
the  most  magnificent  scale  of  all  the  Assyrian 
apartments,  but  it  was  so  thoroughly  broken 
up  through  the  archite(5l's  inability  to  cover 
the  wide  space  without  sufficient  supports, 
that  this  room  virtually  constituted  four 
chambers  of  moderate  size  rather  than  one 
grand  hall.  As  one  apartment  this  room 
was  one  hundred  and  sixty-five  feet  long  by 
sixty-two  feet  wide,  ^'iewed  as  a  .suite  of 
four  chambers,  the  rooms  appeared  to  be 
two  long  and  narrow  halls  running  parallel 
to  each  other,  and  conne6ted  by  a  grand 
doorw^ay  in  the  middle,  with  two  smaller 
chambers  located  at  the  two  ends,  running 
at  right  angles  with  the  principal  ones. 
The  smaller  chambers  were  sixty-two  feet 
long,  and  respedlively  nineteen  feet  and 
twenty-three  feet  wide.  The  larger  ones 
were  one  hundred  and  ten  feet  long,  and  re- 
spedlively tweut)'  feet  and  twenty-eight  feet 
wide. 

Mr.  Fergu.s.son's  account  of  the  grand 
apartment  of  this  palace  is  as  follows:  "Its 
general  dimensions  are  one  hundred  and 
sixty-five  feet  in  length,  by  sixty-two  feet 
in  width;  and  it  consequentlj'  is  the  largest 
hall  yet  found  in  As,syria.  The  architeAs, 
however,  do  not  seem  to  have  been  quite 
equal  to  roofing  so  large  a  space,  even  with 
the  number  of  pillars  with  which  the}'  seem 
usually  to  have  crowded  their  floors;  and  it 
is  consequently  divided  down  the  center  by 
a  wall  .supporting  dwarf  columns,  forming 
a  center  gallery,  to  which  acce.ss  was  had  by 
bridge  galleries  at  both  ends,  a  movle  of  ar- 
rangement capable  of  great  variety  and 
picflurcsquene.ss  of  effetfl,  and  of  which  I 
have  little  doubt  that  the  builders  availed 
themselves  to  the  fullest  extent. " 

The  inner  of  the  twc  long  parallel  cham- 


bers was  coimedled  by  a  grand  doorway, 
guarded  by  sphinxes  and  colossal  lions, 
either  with  a  small  court  or  with  a  large 
chamber  extending  to  the  southern  edge  of 
the  mound;  while  the  two  end  rooms  were 
connecfted  with  smaller  apartments  in  the 
same  direcftion,  but  Mr.  Layard's  excava- 
tions here  were  incomplete.  The  buildings  on 
the  right  and  left  sides  of  the  great  court 
appear  to  have  been  wholly  .separate  from 
those  at  its  southern  end.  Tho.se  on  the 
left  have  not  been  explored,  but  on  the 
right  several  long  narrow  apartments,  with 
one  or  two  passages,  have  been  examined. 
Eastward  the  palace  has  not  been  explored, 
and  its  extent  northward,  southward  and 
westward  is  not  certain.  Southward  and 
westward  the  mound  has  been  worn  away 
by  the  Tigris  and  the  Shor-Derreh  torrent. 

The  walls  of  Esar-haddon's  palace  were 
built  of  sun-dried  bricks,  reveted  with  ala- 
baster slabs,  taken  from  the  decaj-ed  palace.- 
of  his  predecessors.  Ere  the  new  sculp 
tures  on  these  slabs  were  completed,  Esar- 
haddon  died,  and  the  work  ceased,  or  the 
palace  was  ruined  by  fire.  The  only  sculp- 
tures finished  were  the  winged  man-headed 
bulls  and  lions  at  the  various  portals,  a  few 
bas-reliefs  near  them,  and  some  sphinxes 
within  the  span  of  the  two  widest  doorways. 
These  sphinxes  were  Egyptian  in  idea,  but 
had  the  horned  cap  like  those  on  the  bulls, 
the  Assyrian  arrangement  of  hair,  Assyr- 
ian ear-rings,  and  wings  like  those  of  the 
bulls  and  lions.  The  figures  near  the  lions 
were  mythic,  and  according  to  Mr.  Eayard's 
representations,  were  more  than  ordinarily 
grotesque. 

The  inscriptions  give  us  a  full  account  of 
the  character  of  Esar-haddon's  buildings 
and  their  ornamentation.  These  inform  us 
that  the  thirty-six  temples  which  this  king 
erected  in  Assyria  and  Babylonia  were  pro- 
fu.sely  adorned  with  plates  of  gold  and  sil- 
ver, making  them  "as  splendid  as  the  day." 
His  palace  at  Nineveh,  located  on  the  Neb- 
bi-Yunus  mound,  was  said  to  have  been 
built  upon  the  site  of  a  former  palace  of  the 
Assyrian  kings.  The  materials  for  its  con- 
struttion  were  procured  from  different  coun- 


POLITIC.  1 1.    Ills  n  Vv'  V. 


■83 


tries;  the  Phoenician,  Syrian  and  Cyprian 
kings  sending  to  Nineveh  for  this  purpose 
great  beams  of  cedar,  cypress  and  ebony, 
stone  statues,  and  various  works  in  different 
kinds  of  metal.  The  size  of  this  palace  is 
said  to  have  surpassed  all  the  structures  of 
former  kings.  Car\-ed  beams  of  cedar  wood 
were  used  in  roofing  this  edifice,  which  was 
partly  supported  by  colunnis  of  cypress 
wood,  ornamented  with  rings  of  silver  and 
strengthened  with  iron  bands.  Winged 
man-headed  bulls  and  lions  guarded  the  por- 
tals; and  the  gates  were  made  of  ebony  and 
cypress  ornamented  with  iron,  silver  and 
ivor\-  ;  while  the  walls  were  adorned  with 
sculptured  slabs  and  enameled  bricks. 

The  prejudice  of  the  present  Mohammedan 
inhabitants  against  disturbing  their  dead, 
and  against  violating  the  tomb  of  Jonah  has 
thus  far  prevented  satisfactory  excavations 
of  the  Nebbi-Yunus  mound.  Mr.  Layard 
stealthily  made  a  slight  excavation  in  this 
mound,  thus  discovering  a  few  fragments 
bearing  Esar-haddon's  name.  Turkish  ex- 
cavations soon  afterwards  uncovered  a  long 
line  of  wall  of  one  of  Sennacherib's  palaces, 
and  likewise  a  part  of  Esar-haddon's  palace. 
On  the  outside  surface  of  the  former  were 
winged  man-headed  bulls  in  high  relief, 
.sculptured  seemingly  after  the  wall  was 
eredted,  each  bull  covering  ten  or  twelve 
distindl  stone  blocks.  A  slab-inscription 
obtained  from  this  palace  was  published  in 
the  British  Museum  Series.  A  bronze  lion 
with  legend  was  obtained  from  Esar-had- 
don's palace. 

We  know  nothing  of  Esar-haddon's  palace 
at  Babjdon,  which  now  lies  buried  beneath 
the  mounds  at  Hillah.  Mr.  Layard  and  Sir 
Henrs'  Rawlinson  have  carefully  examined 
the  Sherif-Khan  palace,  which  was  found  to 
be  very-  much  inferior  to  the  ordinan,-  Assyr- 
ian royal  residences,  being  oidy  a  dwelling 
eredled  by  Esar-haddon  for  his  eldest  son, 
and  it  also  is  believed  to  have  been  unfin- 
ished when  the  king  died. 

After  a  reign  of  thirteen  years,  Esar- 
haddon,  "King  of  Assyria,  Balndonia, 
Egypt,  Meroe  and  Ethiopia,"  as  he  calls 
himself  in  his  later  inscriptions,  died  in  B. 


C.  668,  and  was  succeeded  on  his  throne  by 
his  eldest  .son.  Asshur-bani-pal,  whom  he 
had  already  associated  in  the  goveriunent. 
Asshur-bani-pal,  upon  his  accession,  ap- 
pointed to  the  viceroyalty  of  Babylon  his 
younger  brother,  vSaiil-Mugina,  called  vSani- 
mughes  by  Polyhistor,  and  Sao.sduchinus  by 
the  Canon  of  Ptolemy. 

Upon  his  accession,  Asshur-bani-pal  found 
himself  involved  in  a  war  with  Egypt. 
Eate  in  Esar-haddon's  reign  Tirhakah,  the 
Ethiopian  king,  de.scended  the  Nile,  recov- 
ered Thebes,  Memphis  and  other  Eg)'ptian 
cities,  and  expelled  the  princes  and  governors 
appointed  by  Esar-haddon  when  he  had  con- 
quered the  countrj'.  Asshur-bani-pal,  soon 
after  his  accession,  led  an  expedition  through 
Syria  into  Egypt,  and  defeated  the  Ethio- 
pian and  Egyptian  army  near  the  city  of 
Kar-banit.  Tirhakah  at  once  fled  from 
Memphis,  .sailing  up  the  Nile  to  Thebes; 
and  being  pursued  by  the  A.ssyrians  to  the 
latter  place,  the  Ethiopian  king  continued 
his  retreat  up  the  Nile  valley,  leaving  all 
Egypt  north  of  Thebes  in  the  possession  of 
the  Assyrian  monarch.  Asshur-bani-pal 
restored  the  princes  and  rulers  whom  his 
father  had  placed  over  Egypt,  and  whom 
Tirhakah  had  expelled;  and,  after  a  short 
rest  at  Thebes,  returned  in  triumph  by  waj'' 
of  Syria  to  Nineveh. 

No  sooner  had  the  Assyrian  king  left 
Egypt  than  intrigues  to  restore  the  Ethio- 
pian power  commenced.  Neko  and  other 
Egyptian  governors  restored  by  Asshur-bani- 
pal  deserted  the  Assyrian  cause  and  sided 
with  the  Ethiopians.  The  governors  who 
remained  loyal  to  Assyria  tried  to  suppress 
the  revolt ;  Neko  and  .several  other  rebel 
leaders  were  carried  in  chains  to  Assyria; 
and  Sais,  Tanis,  Mendes  and  other  revolted 
Egyptian  cities  were  puni.shed.  The  revolt 
was,  however,  successful,  and  Tirhakah 
having  reestablished  himself  at  Thebes, 
threatened  to  again  extend  his  sway  over 
the  entire  Nile  valley.  But  when  Asshur- 
bani-pal  forgave  Neko  and  sent  him  back  to 
Egypt  with  a  large  Assyrian  army,  Tirha- 
kah again  fled  to  Upper  Egypt,  where  he 
died  shortly  afterwards.      Tirhakah' s  step- 


1 84 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  )  -. — A SS  J  'RIA. 


son  and  successor,  Urdamane — believed  to 
be  the  Rud-Amun  of  the  hieroglyphics — 
descended  the  Nile  valley  with  an  array,  de- 
feated the  Assyrians  near  Memphis,  forced 
them  to  seek  refuge  within  its  walls,  besieged 
and  took  the  city,  and  regained  possession 
of  Lower  Egj'pt.  Upon  hearing  of  this, 
Asshur-bani-pal  left  Asshur,  and  leading  an 
expedition  personally  against  the  new  Ethi- 
opian monarch,  drove  him  from  Memphis 
to  Thebes,  and  thence  to  the  city  of  Kipkip, 
far  up  the  Nile.  After  entering  Thebes  in 
triumph  and  sacking  the  city,  and  again 
placing  governors  over  the  Egyptian  cities 
and  taking  hostages  to  secure  their  loyalty, 
Asshur-bani-pal  returned  to  Nineveh  with 
his  plunder  of  gold,  silver,  ebony,  ivory, 
obelisks,  precious  stones,  dj'ed  garments, 
monkeys  and  elephants  of  the  Theban 
palace,  male  and  female  captives. 

Between  his  first  and  second  expeditions 
into  Egypt,  Asshur-bani-pal  attacked  Tyre, 
whose  king,  Baal,  had  incurred  his  displeas- 
ure, and,  reducing  him  to  submission,  ex- 
adled  from  him  a  large  tribute,  which  he 
sent  to  Nineveh.  About  the  same  time  As- 
shur-bani-pal married  a  Cilician  princess. 
Soon  after  his  second  expedition  into  Egypt, 
Asshur-bani-pal  invaded  Asia  Minor,  cross- 
ing the  Taurus  mountains  and  penetrating 
a  region  never  before  entered  by  an  Assyrian 
king;  and,  after  reducing  a  number  of  towns, 
he  returned  to  Nineveh,  where  he  received 
an  embassy,  of  which  he  gives  the  following 
account:  "Gyges,  King  of  Lydia,  a  country 
on  the  sea-coast,  a  ren>ote  place,  of  which 
the  kings  my  ancestors  had  never  even  heard 
the  name,  had  formerly  learned  in  a  dream 
the  fame  of  my  empire,  and  had  sent  officers 
to  my  presence  to  perform  homage  on  his 
behalf."  The  Eydian  king  now  sent  a  sec- 
ond time  to  As.shur-bani-pal  and  told  him 
that  since  his  submission  he  defeated  the 
Cimmerians,  who  had  formerly  ravaged  his 
countrj%  and  he  begged  him  to  accept  Cim- 
merian chiefs  whom  he  had  taken  captive 
in  battle,  along  with  other  presents,  which 
the  Assyrian  monarch  regarded  as  "tribute." 
About  the  same  time  As.shur-bani-pal  re- 
pulsed an  attack  by  the  "King  of  Kharbat" 


on  a  distridl  of  Babylonia,  and  aft^er  taking 
Kharbat,  transported  its  inhabitants  to 
Egypt. 

Asshur-bani-pal  next  invaded  Minni,  or 
Persannenia,  the  mountain  region  about 
Lakes  Van  and  Urumiyeh.  Akhsheri,  the 
King  of  Minni,  having  lost  his  capital,  Izirtu, 
and  several  other  cities,  was  murdered  by 
his  subjedls;  and  his  son,  Vahalli,  was 
forced  to  submit,  and  sent  an  embassy 
to  Nineveh  to  do  homage,  with  tribute, 
presents  and  hostages.  As.shur-bani-pal 
received  the  envoys  gracioush',  pardoned 
Vahalli  and  kept  him  on  the  throne  of 
Minni,  but  compelled  him  to  pay  a  heavy 
tribute.  Asshur-bani-pal  also  conquered  a 
region  called  Paddiri,  which  his  predeces- 
-sors  had  separated  from  Minni,  but  which 
he  annexed  to  his  own  dominion,  placing 
an  Assyrian  governor  over  it. 

Asshur-bani-pal  next  engaged  in  a  strug- 
gle of  twelve  j-ears  with  Elam,  or  Susiana. 
Certain  tribes,  pressed  by  famine,  had  passed 
from  Susiana  into  the  Assyrian  dominions, 
where  they  were  permitted  to  settle;  but 
when,  after  the  famine  had  ceased,  they 
wished  to  return  to  their  former  home, 
Asshur-bani-pal  would  not  agree  to  their 
removal.  Urtaki,  King  of  Susiana,  resented 
this  by  invading  Babj'lonia,  and  was  aided 
by  Belu-bagar,  King  of  the  Gambulu,  an 
important  Aramaean  tribe.  Saiil-Mugina, 
Asshur-bani-pal' s  brother  and  viceroj'  at 
Babylon,  greatly  alarmed,  sent  to  Nineveh 
for  aid.  Thereupon  an  Assyrian  army  drove 
the  Susianian  monarch  out  of  Babylonia, 
inflicfting  upon  him  a  severe  defeat  before 
he  escaped  and  returned  to  Susa,  where  he 
died  within  a  year. 

A  dynastic  revolution  in  Susiana  now 
proved  of  great  advantage  to  the  Assyrians. 
Urtaki  had  wrested  the  Susianian  throne 
from  his  elder  brother,  Umman-aldas.  At 
his  death,  his  younger  brother,  Temin-Um- 
man,  usurped  the  crown ;  and  the  sons  of  Um- 
man-aldas and  those  of  Urtaki,  who  claimed 
the  Susianian  crown,  only  saved  their  lives  by 
fleeing  to  Nineveh  with  their  relati\'es  and 
adherents,  and  putting  themselves  under  the 
protecflion  of  the  Assyrian  monarch.     Thus 


POLITICAL    JUS  TON  V. 


185 


Asshur-b:iiii-pal,  in  the  expedition  which  he 
now  undertook,  had  a  party  which  favored 
him  in  Susiana  itself;  but  Teniin-Uninian 
strengthened  himself  by  alliances  with  two 
descendants  of  Mcrodach-Baladan,  who  had 
principalities  upon  the  Persian  Gulf  coast, 
with  two  sons  of  Belu-bagar,  sheikh  of  the 
Gambulu,  with  two  mountain  chiefs,  one  a 
blood  relation  of  the  Assyrian  king,  and 
with  several  inferior  chieftains.  Asshur- 
bani-pal  defeated  the  allies,  took  Temin-Um- 
man  prisoner,  executed  him,  and  exposed 
his  head  over  one  of  the  gates  of  Nineveh. 
He  then  divided  Susiana  between  Urtaki's 
sons,  Umman-ibi  and  Tammarit,  establish- 
ing the  former  at  Susa,  and  the  latter  at  a 
town  called  Khidal,  in  Eastern  Susiana.  A 
son  of  Temin-Uniman  was  executed  with  his 
father.  Several  of  Merodach  -  Baladan's 
grandsons  suffered  mutilation.  A  Chaldaean 
prince  and  a  chieftain  of  the  Gambulu  had 
their  tongues  torn  out  by  the  roots.  An- 
other Gambulu  chief  was  beheaded.  Two 
of  Temin-Umman's  principal  ofiScers  were 
chained  and  flayed.  Bj'  these  cruelties  As- 
shur-bani-pal  expected  to  strike  terror  into 
his  enemies. 

No  sooner,  however,  had  the  Assyrians 
returned  to  Nineveh  then  fresh  troubles 
broke  out.  Asshur-bani-pal's  own  brother, 
Saiil-Mugina,  dissatisfied  with  his  subordi- 
nate position  as  viceroy  of  Babylon,  rebelled, 
and,  declaring  himself  King  of  Babylon, 
obtained  a  number  of  important  allies. 
These  were  Umman-ibi,  who,  though  he 
had  received  his  crown  from  Asshur-bani- 
pal,  had  been  bribed  by  gift  of  treasure 
from  the  Babylonian  temples;  Vaiteha,  a 
powerful  Arabian  prince;  and  Nebo-bel- 
sumi,  a  sur\4ving  grandson  of  Merodach- 
Baladan.  Saiil-Mugina's  fair  prospecfls 
of  success  were  blighted  b}-  domestic 
troubles  in  Susiana,  where  Umman-ibi  was 
defeated  and  slain  in  a  civil  war  with 
his  brother  Tammarit,  who  thus  became 
King  of  all  Susiana.  Tammarit,  however, 
entered  into  an  alliance  with  Saiil-Mu- 
gina; but  while  ab.sent  with  his  army  in 
Babylonia,  a  mountain  chief  from  Luristan 
named  Inda-bibi,  or  Inda-bigas,  excited  a 
1— 12.-U.  II. 


revolt  in  vSusiana  and  seized  the  throne;  and 
Tammarit,  deserted  by  his  army,  was  obliged 
to  flee  and  .seek  safety  in  concealment,  while 
the  Susianian  army  returned  home.  While 
Saiil-Mugina  thus  lost  the  most  important 
of  his  allies,  A.sshur-bani-pal  had  overrun 
the  northern  Babylonian  provinces  and  be- 
sieged and  took  the  Babylonian  towns  one 
after  another.  Saiil-Mugina  was  taken  pris- 
oner by  Asshur-bani-pal,  who  punished  his 
rebel  brother  more  terribly  than  any  of  his 
other  captured  enemies,  burning  him  alive. 

A  lull  of  some  j-ears  in  acflual  hostilities 
between  Assyria  and  Susiana  followed. 
Inda-bibi  having  given  refuge  to  Nebo-bel- 
sumi,  and  having  repeatedly  refu.sed  to  sur- 
render the  fugitive  prince  as  demanded  by 
the  Assyrian  king,  was  killed  b}'  the  com- 
mander of  his  archers,  a  second  Umman- 
aldas,  who  then  usurped  the  Susianian 
throne.  At  the  same  time  many  pretenders 
claimed  the  Susianian  crown,  and  Asshur- 
bani-pal  again  demanded  the  surrender  of 
Nebo-bel-sumi,  who  would  have  been  given 
up  had  he  not  committed  suicide.  About 
B.  C.  645  Asshur-bani-pal  invaded  Susiann, 
took  the  strongl)--fortified  town  of  Bit-Imbi 
by  siege,  drove  Umman-aldas  into  the 
mountain  region  of  Susiana,  took  Susa, 
Badaca  and  twenty-four  other  cities,  and 
assigned  the  government  of  Western  Susiana 
to  Tammarit,  who,  after  his  flight  from 
Babylonia,  had  become  a  fugitive  at  the 
court  of  Assyria.  Umman-aldas  was  al- 
lowed to  retain  the  sovereignty  of  Eastern 
Susiana. 

Tammarit,  in  order  to  cast  off  his  vassal- 
age to  the  Assyrian  monarch,  plotted  to  mas- 
sacre all  the  foreign  garrisons  in  his  domin- 
ions, but  was  carried  a  prisoner  to  Nineveh, 
and  Western  Susiana  was  put  under  military 
rule.  Umman-aldas,  in  his  mountain  fast- 
ness, colledled  a  new  anny,  and  took  pos- 
session of  Bit-Imbi  the  following  spring; 
but  unal  )le  to  resist  the  Assyrian  assaults,  he 
soon  evacuated  the  town,  and  defended  him- 
.self  in  his  entire  retreat  to  Su,sa,  holding 
the  different  strong  towns  and  rivers  in 
succession.  But  the  Assyrians  drove  him 
from  post  to  post,  and  finally  took  both  Susa 


1 86 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


and  Badaca,  thus  again  placing  Susiana  at 
Asshur-bani-pal's  mercy,  all  the  towns  mak- 
ing their  submission,  while  Umman-aldas 
was  carried  a  prisoner  to  Nineveh.  Inflamed 
with  rage  on  account  of  the  revolt,  Asshur- 
bani-pal  plundered  the  Susianian  capital  of 
its  treasures,  among  which  were  eighteen 
images  of  gods  and  goddesses,  thirty-two 
statues  of  former  Susianian  kings,  including 
those  of  Kudur-Nakhunta  and  Tammarit. 
He  also  gave  the  other  Susianan  cities  to  be 
pillaged  by  his  soldiers  for  a  period  of  almost 
two  months.  He  then  annexed  Susiana  to 
the  Assyrian  Empire,  thus  closing  this 
Susianian  war,  after  it  had  lasted,  with  short 
intervals,  for  twelve  years. 

While  Asshur-bani-pal  was  thus  engaged 
in  Susiana  and  Babylonia,  Psammetichus 
declared  himself  independent  in  Egypt  and 
began  a  war  against  the  pettj-  Egyptian 
princes  who  remained  steadfast  in  their  loy- 
ality  to  their  Assyrian  .suzerain.  In  Asia 
Minor,  Gyges,  King  of  Lydia,  who  had  so 
recently  done  homage  to  Assyria,  sent  aid  to 
the  Egyptian  rebel.  Egypt  cast  off  the  As- 
syrian yoke;  but  Gyges  was  slain  in  a  terri- 
ble struggle  with  the  Cimmerians,  who  had 
spread  desolation  throughout  his  dominions; 
and  Ard^-s,  his  successor  on  the  L^dian 
throne,  renewed  the  homage  to  the  Assyrian 
king  which  his  father  had  relinquished. 

Asshur-bani-pal  next  engaged  in  an  im- 
portant war  with  some  Arab  tribes  of  the 
desert  who  had  aided  Saiil-Mugina  in  his  re- 
volt against  his  brother  and  suzerain.  The 
Arab  leader  in  this  war  was  Vaiteha,  whose 
allies  were  Natun,  or  Nathan,  King  of  the 
Nabathseans,  and  Annnu-ladin,  King  of  Ke- 
dar.  The  whole  border  of  Arabia  from  the 
Persian  Gulf  to  S5'ria,  and  thence  southward 
by  Damascus  to  Petra,  was  the  scene  of  mili- 
tary' operations  in  this  war.  Petra,  Moab, 
Edom,  Zoar  and  several  other  cities  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  Assyrians.  The  Arabs 
were  defeated  with  great  slaughter  in  the 
final  Isattle  at  Kliukhuruna,  in  the  moun- 
tains near  Damascus;  and  the  two  Arab 
chiefs  who  had  aided  vSaiil-Mugina  were 
carried  captives  to  Nineveh,  and  there  pub- 
licly executed. 


Thus  ended  the  annals  of  A.sshur-bani-pal, 
who  was  the  most  enterprising  and  the  most 
powerful  of  Assyrian  warrior  kings,  and 
who  extended  the  Assj-rian  Empire  in  e\-ery 
diredtion  beyond  its  previous  limits.  In 
Egypt  he  completed  the  task  begun  by  his 
father  Esar-haddon,  and  established  the  As- 
syrian dominion  for  some  years,  not  only  at 
Sais  and  Memphis,  but  likewise  at  Thebes. 
In  Asia  Minor  he  subdued  large  sedlions 
never  before  invaded  by  any  Assyrian  king, 
and  carried  his  renown  to  the  western  ex- 
tremity of  the  Asiatic  continent.  In  the 
north  he  held,  not  only  the  Minni,  but  the 
Urarda,  or  true  Armenians,  among  his  trib- 
utaries. On  the  south  he  formally  annexed 
Susiana  to  the  Assyrian  Empire,  and  on  the 
west  he  signall)'  chasti.sed  the  Arabs. 

Thus  in  the  middle  part  of  A.sshur-bani- 
pal's  brilliant  reign  Assyria  reached  the  cul- 
minating point  of  her  greatness — the  zenith 
of  her  power  and  the  widest  extent  of  her 
dominion — being  at  this  time  paramount 
o\'er  the  portion  of  Western  Asia  from 
the  Mediterranean  and  the  Hal>-s  on  the  west 
to  the  Caspian  Sea  and  the  Persian  desert  on 
the  ea.st,  and  from  Arabia  and  the  Persian 
Gulf  on  the  south  to  the  northern  frontier 
of  Armenia  and  the  center  of  Cappadocia 
on  the  north.  In  Africa  the  authorit}'  of 
Assyria  was  at  this  time  acknowledged  by 
Egypt  as  far  south  as  Thebes.  Thus  the 
Assyrian  influence  extended  over  Susiana, 
Chaldsea,  Babylonia,  Media,  Matiene,  or  the 
Zagros  range,  Mesopotamia;  portions  of  Ar- 
menia, Cappadocia  and  Cilicia;  Syria,  Phoe- 
nicia, Palestine,  Idumsea,  part  of  Arabia  and 
nearly  all  of  Egypt.  The  island  of  Cyprus 
may  also  have  been  a  dependency.  But 
Persia  proper,  Bactria  and  Sogdiana,  even 
Hyrcania,  were  beyond  the  eastern  limit  of 
Assyrian  power,  which  on  the  north  did  not 
on  this  side  extend  farther  than  about  the 
vicinity  of  Ka,svin,  and  towards  the  south 
was  confined  within  the  Zagros  mountain 
range;  while  on  the  west,  Phrygia,  Lydia, 
Lj'cia,  even  Pamphylia,  were  independent, 
the  arms  of  Assyria  having  never  been,  as 
far  as  known,  carried  westward  beyond  Ci- 
licia or  across  the  river  Halys. 


POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


187 


Asshur-bani-pal  was  also  noted  for  his 
love  of  hunting,  especially  lion-hunting. 
On  the  banks  of  streams,  and  in  his  pleas- 
ure-galley in  raid-stream,  he  roused  the 
king  of  beasts  from  his  lair  by  means  of 
hounds  and  beaters,  and  slew  him  with  his 
arrows.  In  his  own  park  of  paradise  large 
and  ferocious  beasts,  brought  from  distant 
quarters,  were  placed  in  traps  about  the 
grounds,  and  when  he  approached  they 
were  released  from  confinement,  while  he 
drove  among  them  in  his  chariot,  letting 
fly  his  arrows  at  each,  seldom  missing  the 
marks  at  which  they  were  direcfted.  With 
two  or  three  attendants  armed  with  spears, 
he  often  encountered  the  terrific  spring  of 
the  bolder  beasts,  who  rushed  wild  with 
rage  at  the  royal  marksman  to  tear  him 
from  the  chariot.  On  some  occasions  he 
left  the  chariot-board  and  engaged  in  a  close 
struggle  single-handed  with  the  brutes, 
without  the  protection  of  armor,  in  his 
usual  dress,  with  only  a  fillet  upon  his  head, 
and  would  pierce  them  through  the  heart 
with  sword  or  spear.  He  often  engaged  in 
the  chase  of  the  wild  ass,  and  hunted  the 
stag,  the  hind  and  the  ibex,  or  w-ild  goat. 
His  love  of  sport  is  also  attested  bj'  the 
figures  of  his  favorite  hounds  made  inclay, 
and  painted  and  inscribed  with  their  respec- 
tive names. 

Asshur-bani-pal  was  the  only  A.ssyrian 
king  who  exhibited  any  taste  for  learning 
and  literature.  His  predecessors  only  left  to 
their  posterity  some  records  of  the  events  of 
their  reigns,  inscribed  on  cylinders,  tab- 
lets, slabs,  winged  man-headed  bulls  and 
lions,  and  a  few  dedicatory  inscriptions, 
addresses  to  the  deities  whom  they  par- 
ticularly worshiped.  Asshur-bani-pal  dis- 
played far  more  varied  and  all-embracing 
literary  tastes.  He  established  a  Royal  Li- 
brar>-,  consisting  of  claj'  tablets,  at  Nineveh, 
from  which  the  Briti.sh  Museum  has  derived 
its  most  valuable  coUedlion.  Under  the 
auspices  of  this  monarch  were  prepared  com- 
parative vocabularies,  lists  of  deities  and 
their  epithets,  chronological  lists  of  kings 
and  eponyms,  records  of  astronomical  obser- 
vations, grammars,    histories    and    various 


kinds  of  .scientific  works.  These  treasures 
of  learning  were  preserved  in  certain  cham- 
bers of  the  palace  of  A.s.shur-bani-pal's 
grandfather,  Sennacherib,  where  they  were 
discovered  by  Mr.  Layard.  There  are  al.so 
a  large  number  of  religious  documents,  pray- 
ers, invocations,  etc.,  besides  many  juridical 
treatises,  the  fines  to  be  imposed  for  certain 
social  offenses;  and  lastly,  there  are  all  the 
contents  of  the  Registry  office,  such  as  deeds 
of  sale  and  barter  referring  to  land,  houses, 
and  all  kinds  of  property,  contracfts,  bonds 
for  loans,  benefactions  and  other  different 
kinds  of  legal  instruments.  Selections  from 
the  tablets  have  been  published  in  England, 
being  prepared  for  that  purjiose  h\  vSir  Henry 
Rawlinson  and  others.  The  clay  tablets  on 
which  they  were  inscribed  lay  here  in  such 
large  numbers,  sometimes  whole,  but  gen- 
erallj'  in  fragments,  that  they  covered  the 
floors  of  the  chambers  for  more  than  a  foot 
high.  Mr.  Layard  truly  says  that  "the 
documents  thus  discovered  at  Nineveh  prob- 
ably exceed  all  that  has  yet  been  afforded 
b}^  the  monuments  of  Egypt. ' '  Among  the 
interesting  and  valuable  results  which  these 
documents  have  recently  yielded  is  the 
chronological  scheme  drawn  from  sev-en  dif- 
ferent tablets,  and  known  as  ' '  the  Assyrian 
Canon." 

As  a  builder  A.sshur-bani-pal  fully  rivaled, 
if  he  did  not  surpass,  the  greatest  of  his 
predecessors.  His  magnificent  palace  at 
Nineveh,  whose  ruins  are  seen  on  the 
Koyunjik  mound,  within  a  few  hundred 
j^ards  of  his  illustrious  grandfather's  splen- 
did royal  edifice,  was  built  on  a  plan  differ- 
ent from  those  of  former  kings.  The  main 
building  consisted  of  three  arms  branching 
from  a  common  center,  thus  in  its  general 
form  resembling  the  letter  T.  The  central 
point  was  entered  bj'  a  long  ascending  gal- 
lery- lined  with  sculptures,  leading  from  a 
gateway,  with  rooms  attached,  at  a  comer 
of  the  great  court,  first  a  distance  of  one 
hundred  and  ninety  feet  in  a  direiftion  par- 
allel to  the  top  bar  of  the  T,  and  then  a  dis- 
tance of  eighty  feet  in  a  diredtion  at  right 
angles  to  this,  thus  bringing  it  down  pre- 
cisely to  the  central  point  from  which  the 


188 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


arms  extended.  The  whole  stnicfture  was 
thus  shaped  like  a  cross,  having  one  arm 
extending  from  the  top  towards  the  left  or 
west.  The  principal  apartments  were  in  the 
lower  limb  of  the  cross,  where  a  grand  hall 
extended  almost  the  entire  length  of  the 
limb,  no  less  than  one  hundred  and  forty- 
five  feet  long  by  twenty-eight  and  a  half 
feet  wide,  opening  towards  the  east  on  a 
great  court,  paved  principally  with  patterned 
slabs,  and  communicating  with  a  number  of 
smaller  rooms  towards  the  west,  and  through 
these  smaller  rooms  with  a  second  court, 
facing  towards  the  south-west  and  the  south. 
The  next  largest  apartment  was  in  the  right 
or  eastern  arm  of  the  cross,  and  was  a  hall 
one  hundred  and  eight  feet  long  by  twenty- 
four  feet  broad,  divided  by  a  wide  doorway, 
in  which  were  two  pillar-bases,  into  a  square 
ante-ghamber  twentj'-four  feet  each  way,  and 
an  inner  apartment  about  eighty  feet  long. 
Neither  arm  of  the  cross  was  thoroughlj'  ex- 
plored, and  it  is  not  known  whether  they 
reached  to  the  extreme  edge  of  the  eastern 
and  western  courts,  dividing  each  into  two, 
or  whether  they  only  extended  into  the 
courts  a  certain  distance.  Only  one  door- 
way has  been  discovered  leading  from  the 
rest  of  the  palace  to  the  western  rooms. 

A.sshur-bani-pars  great  palace  was  especi- 
ally remarkable  for  its  beautiful  and  elabo- 
rate ornamentation.  The  courts  were  paved 
with  large  slabs  covered  with  elegant  pat- 
terns. Some  of  the  doorwa3-s  had  arched 
tops  highly  adorned  with  ro.settes,  lotuses, 
etc.  The  chambers  and  passages  were  lined 
throughout  with  alabaster  slabs,  which  bore 
reliefs  designed  with  remarkable  .spirit,  and 
executed  with  wonderful  detail  and  fineness. 
Here  were  represented  interesting  hunting 
scenes,  such  as  the  wild  ass,  the  stag,  the 
hind,  the  dying  wild  ass,  the  lion  about  to 
spring,  the  wounded  wild  ass  seized  by 
hounds,  the  wounded  lion,  the  lion  biting  a 
chariot-wheel,  the  king  .shooting  a  lion  with 
his  arrow,  the  lion-hunt  on  a  river,  the  king 
killing  lions,  the  lion  let  out  of  a  trap,  the 
hound  held  in  leash,  the  wounded  lioness, 
the  hound  chasing  a  wild  ass,  the  hound 
chasing  a  doe,  the  stag  taking  the  water,  etc. 


In  this  part  of  the  palace  were  likewise 
illustrated  the  king's  private  life,  the  trees 
and  flowers  of  the  palace  garden,  the  royal 
galley  with  its  two  banks  of  oars,  the  liba- 
tion over  four  dead  lions,  the  temple  with 
pillars  resting  on  lions,  and  different  bands 
of  musicians.  A  part  of  the  ascending  pas- 
sage was  adorned  with  various  .scenes,  such 
as  a  long  train,  with  game,  nets  and  dogs 
returning  from  the  chase.  In  combination 
with  all  the  sculptures  just  enumerated  were 
many  .scenes  of  sieges  and  battles,  illustrat- 
ing As.shur-bani-pal's  wars.  Reliefs  resem- 
bling these  last  were  discovered  by  Mr.  Lay- 
ard  in  certain  chambers  of  Sennacherib's 
palace  which  had  been  embellished  by  Ass- 
hur-bani-pal.  These  reliefs  were  distin- 
guished for  the  large  number  and  small  size 
of  the  figures,  for  the  varietj'  and  .spirit  of  the 
attitudes,  and  for  the  careful  finish  of  all  the 
minute  details  of  the  scenes  illustrated  upon 
them.  These  give  us  a  good  representation 
of  an  Assyrian  battle,  showing  us  at  one 
view  the  battle,  the  flight  and  pursuit,  the 
capture  and  treatment  of  prisoners,  the 
gathering  of  the  spoil  and  the  beheading  of 
the  slain.  These  reliefs  are  now  in  the 
British  Mu.seum. 

A.sshur-bani-pal,  as  already  obser\'ed, 
made  additions  to  Sennacherib's  great  palace 
at  Nineveh,  and  ereefted  some  other  build- 
ings at  the  same  city,  whose  remains  are 
seen  on  the  Nebbi-Yunus  mound,  where 
have  been  discovered  slabs  inscribed  with 
his  name  and  an  account  of  his  wars.  He 
also  built  a  temple  to  Ishtar  at  Nineveh, 
whose  ruins  are  seen  on  the  Koyunjik 
mound,  and  repaired  a  shrine  of  the  same 
goddess  at  Arbela.  If  he  was  the  monarch 
called  Sardanapalus  by  the  Greeks,  he  was 
the  founder  of  Tarsus,  in  Cilicia,  and  of  the 
neighboring  city  of  Anchialus,  on  the  au- 
thority of  some  classical  writers,  though 
more  reliable  authors  inform  us  that  Tarsus 
was  founded  by  Sennacherib.  It  was  be- 
lieved generally  by  the  Greeks  that  the  tomb 
of  Sardanapalus  was  in  this  vicinity.  They 
described  this  tomb  as  a  monument  of  some 
height,  having  a  statue  of  the  king  on  the 
top,  representing  him  as  snapping  his  fingers. 


POL  J  TIC  A  I.    HIS  TOR  Y. 


189 


The  stone  base  bore  an  inscription  in  As- 
sj-rian  characters,  which  they  interpreted 
as  follows:  "Sardanapalus,  son  of  Anacyn- 
daraxes,  built  Tarsus  and  Anchialus  in  one 
day.  Do  thou,  O  stranger,  eat,  drink,  and 
amuse  thyself;  for  all  the  rest  of  human  life 
is  not  worth  so  much  as  this" — "this"  sig- 
nifying the  sound  supposed  to  be  made  by 
the  king  with  his  fingers.  Clearchus  said 
that  the  inscription  was  simply  the  following: 
' '  Sardanapalus,  son  of  Anacyndaraxes, 
built  Tarsus  and  Anchiale  in  one  day — yet 
now  he  is  dead."  Amyntas  said  that  the 
tomb  of  Sardanapalus  was  at  Nineveh,  and 
gave  a  very^  different  inscription.  Rawlin- 
son  thinks  that  the  so-called  tomb  of  Sar- 
danapalus was  realh-  the  stele  set  up  by 
Sennacherib  on  his  conquest  of  Cilicia  and 
founding  of  Tarsus,  as  related  by  Polyhistor. 
The  Greeks  seem  to  have  known  more  of 
this  monarch  than  of  any  other  Assyrian 
king.  The  account  given  by  Ctesias  of  the 
voluptuous  Assyrian  monarch  whom  he 
called  Sardanapalus,  and  repeated  from  him 
by  subsequent  authors,  does  not  probably 
refer  to  Asshur-bani-pal,  but  rather  alludes 
to  his  successor,  the  last  Assyrian  king. 
Asshur-bani-pal,  the  vanquisher  of  Tirha- 
kah,  the  conqueror  of  the  tribes  bej^ond  the 
Taurus,  the  great  warrior  king  whom  the 
wealthj'  and  prosperous  Gyges,  King  of 
Lydia,  sought  to  propitiate  by  means  of 
rich  presents,  was  so  unlike  the  mere  volup- 
tuary who  never  ventured  outside  the  palace 
gates,  but  confined  himself  exclusively  to 
the  seraglio,  performing  woman's  work  and 
often  attired  in  female  apparel.  He  was 
one  of  the  greatest  of  Assj-ria's  kings.  He 
conquered  Egypt  and  Susiana,  held  Baby- 
lon in  quiet  subjecflion  with  the  exception 
of  the  short  revolt  of  Saiil-Mugina,  extended 
his  conquests  far  into  Armenia,  led  his 
armies  beyond  the  Taurus,  ana  subjugated 
the  barbarous  tribes  of  Asia  Minor.  During 
the  intervals  of  peace  he  employed  him.self 
in  hunting  the  lion,  and  in  the  eredlion  and 
embellishment  of  palaces  and  temples.  In 
one  re.specfl  alone  does  A.sshur-bani-pal's 
chara<5ler,  as  disclosed  to  us  by  the  monu- 
ments, exhibit  the  slightest  likeness  to  that 


of  the  Sardanapalus  of  Cte.sias.  Asshur- 
bani-pal  obtained  for  him.self  a  multitude  of 
wives.  Always  upon  the  suppression  of  a 
revolt,  he  required  the  conquered  va.ssal  to 
send  to  Nineveh,  along  with  his  tribute,  one 
or  more  of  his  daughters.  These  princesses 
became  inmates  of  his  harem,  or  seraglio. 

Asshur-bani-pal's  glory  was  well  known 
to  the  Greeks.  He  was  doubtless  one  of  the 
' '  two  kings  called  vSardanapalus, ' '  celebrated 
by  Hellanicus;  and  he  must  have  been  "the 
warlike  Sardanapalus ' '  of  Callisthenes.  He- 
rodotus alluded  to  his  great  wealth,  and 
Aristophanes  employed  his  name  as  a  by- 
word for  magnificence.  In  his  reign  the 
Assj-rian  Empire  attained  its  greatest  dimen- 
sions, Assj-rian  art  reached  its  highest  point, 
and  the  Assj^rian  dominion  appeared  likely 
to  extend  itself  over  the  entire  East.  Then 
Assyria  most  fully  answered  the  forcible  de- 
scription given  her  by  the  Jewish  prophet 
Ezekiel  in  these  words:  "The  A.ssyrian  was 
a  cedar  in  Lebanon,  with  fair  branches,  and 
with  a  .shadowing  shroud,  and  of  high  stat- 
ure; and  his  top  was  among  the  thick 
boughs.  The  waters  made  him  great;  the 
deep  set  him  up  on  high  with  her  rivers 
running  about  his  plants,  and  sent  out  her 
little  rivers  unto  all  the  trees  of  the  field. 
Therefore  his  height  was  exalted  above  all 
the  trees  of  the  field,  and  his  boughs  were 
multiplied,  and  his  branches  became  long 
because  of  the  multitude  of  waters,  when 
he  shot  forth.  All  the  fowls  of  the  heaven 
made  their  nests  in  his  boughs,  and  under 
his  branches  did  all  the  beasts  of  the  field 
bring  forth  their  young,  and  under  his 
shadow  dwelt  all  great  nations.  Thus  was 
he  fair  in  his  greatness,  in  the  length  of  his 
branches;  for  his  root  was  by  great  waters. 
The  cedars  in  the  garden  of  God  could  not 
hide  him;  the  fir-trees  were  not  like  his 
boughs:  and  the  chestnut- trees  were  not  like 
his  branches;  nor  any  tree  in  the  garden  of 
God  teas  like  unto  him  in  his  beauty y 

With  all  their  advance  in  civilization, 
their  progress  in  art  and  the  pradlical  inven- 
tions, their  ever-increasing  literature,  the 
As,syrians  still  retained  the  cruel  and  vin- 
dicative spirit  of  the  most  barbarous  ages  and 


I  go 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y.—ASS  YRIA. 


nations  in  conducfling  their  wars.  Through 
the  whole  period  of  their  history  their  treat- 
ment of  captured  enemies  continued  to  be 
of  the  most  barbarous  brutality,  which  all 
their  advancing  culture  and  their  progi'ess 
in- the  arts  of  civilized  life  did  not  tend  to 
mitigate  or  soften.  Sennacherib  and  E.sar- 
haddon  were  more  merciful  than  their  pre- 
decessors, frequently  sparing  their  captives, 
even  when  rebels;  but  As.shur-bani-pal  re- 
stored the  old  pradlice  of  executions,  muti- 
lations and  tortures,  and  was  apparently 
the  most  cruel  of  all  the  Assyrian  kings. 
On  his  bas-reliefs  we  see  the  unresisting 
enemy  pierced  through  with  the  spear,  the 
tongue  torn  from  the  mouth  of  the  captive 
accused  of  blasphemy,  the  rebel  king  be- 
headed on  the  battle-field,  and  the  prisoner 
led  to  execution  with  the  head  of  a  friend  or 
brother  hung  round  his  neck.  We  see  the 
scourgers  preceding  the  king  as  his  regular 
attendants,  with  their  whips  pa.ssed  through 
their  girdles.  We  observe  living  and  dead 
men  subjedled  to  the  operation  of  flaying. 
We  behold  scenes  in  which  the  executioner 
is  represented  as  first  striking  in  the  face 
with  his  fist  those  about  to  be  executed. 
Thus  we  have  all  the  e\-idence  of  barbarous 
cruelty,  such  as  had  a  brutalizing  influence 
on  those  who  inflicfted  it,  and  also  on  those 
who  witnessed  it.  Nineveh  was  deservedly 
designated  by  the  Jewish  prophet  Nahum 
as  "a  bloody  city,"  or  "a  city  of  bloods;" 
and,  in  the  language  of  the  same  prophet, 
"the  lion  did  tear  in  pieces  enough  for  his 
whelps,  and  strangled  for  his  lionesses,  and 
filled  his  holes  with  pre}?,  and  his  dens  with 
ravin."  Asshur-bani-pal  gloried  in  his  vin- 
didlive  and  unsparing  cruelties,  transmitting 
the  record  of  them  to  posterity  by  represent- 
ing them  in  all  their  horrors  upon  his  palace 
walls. 

It  has  been  generally  supposed  that  As- 
shur-bani-pal died  about  B.  C.  648  or  647, 
in  which  case  his  entire  reign  would  have 
been  a  brilliant  and  prosperous  one;  but 
recent  discoveries  render  it  probable  that  he 
lived  and  reigned  until  B.  C.  626,  and  that 
he  was  the  Cinneladanus  of  the  Canon  of 
Ptolemy,    who    occupied    the     Babylonian 


throne  from  B.  C.  647  to  B.  C.  626.   Asshur- 
bani-pal  distinclly  asserts  that  when  he  sub- 
dued Babylon  and  put  his  brother  Saiil-Mu- 
gina  to  death  he  became  King  of  Babylon 
himself;  and  many  tablets  remain,  dated  by 
his  regnal  years  at  Babj'lon,  while  the  epo- 
nyms  which  can  be  assigned  to  his  reign  are 
at  least  twenty-six  or  twenty-.seven.      Poly- 
histor  distindlly  saj's  that  the  successor  of 
Sam-mughes,  or  Saiil-Mugina,  on  the  Baby- 
lonian throne  was  his  brother,  and  that  he 
reigned   twentj'-one   years.      Thus  modem 
writers  have  identified  Asshur-bani-pal  with 
Cinneladanus,  and  have  concluded  that  he 
reigned   in  all  forty-two  years,  from  B.  C. 
668  to  B.  C.  626.     In  this  case  Assyria's  de- 
cline commenced  during  the  later  years  of 
Asshur-bani-pal' s  reign,  so  that  during  this 
period  she  was  obliged  to  exchange  her  former 
aggressive  course  toward  other  nations  for  a 
defensive  attitude  to  maintain  her  own  con- 
tinued existence  against  the  fierce  assaults 
of    the   powerful  neighboring   kingdom   of 
Media  and  the  destrucftive  inroads    of  the 
wild  Scyths  from  the  plains  of  Central  A.sia. 
The  centralized  monarchy  established  in 
Media  about  B.    C.    640  rapidly  developed 
into  a  great  military  power.     Setting  aside 
the  old  system  of  separate  government  and 
village  autonomy,    the    Medes   had   united 
themselves  into  a  single  consolidated  mon- 
archy, and  about  B.  C.   634,  when  Asshur- 
bani-pal  had  reigned  over    Assyria  thirty- 
four  years,  these  people  undertook  an  expe- 
dition against    Nineveh,  but   failed  in   this 
first  attack.     Phraortes,  or  the  adlual  leader 
of   this  army  of  invasion,  was  thoroughly 
defeated  by  the  Assyrians,  his  host  being 
cut  to  pieces,  and  himself  being  among  the 
slain.     Nevertheless  the  facfl  that  the  Medes 
had  assumed  the  offensive  was  a  potent  cause 
for  alarm,  as  it  illustrated   a  new  state  of 
affairs  in  Western  Asia,  fully  demonstrating 
that  Assyria  was  no  longer  the  arbitress  of 
the   destinies   of    nations.       Cyaxares,    the 
next  Median  king,  led  an  army  against  As- 
syria about  B.  C.  632,  defeated  the  Assyrians 
in  battle,  and  at  once  laid  siege  to  Nineveh, 
but  was  recalled  to  the  defense  of  his  own 
country  against  a  devastating  barbarian  tor- 


poi.rncAi.  Ills  TOR  j : 


191 


rent  which  threatened  tt>  engulf  the  mon- 
archy whicli  had  so  suddenly  grown  \\\>  on 
the  eastern  borders  of  Assyria.  This  new 
danger  was  an  irresistible  inroad  of  the 
Scyths,  or  Scythians,  from  Central  Asia, 
who  swept  with  destrudlive  force  over  both 
Media  and  Assyria,  threatening  the  utter 
annihilation  of  the  civilized  nations  of 
Western  Asia. 

Herodotus  and  Hippocrates  described  the 
Scythians  as  coarse  and  gross  in  their  habits, 
with  large  fleshy  bodies,  loose  joints,  soft 
swollen  bellies  and  .scanty  hair.  They 
never  washed  themselves,  only  cleansing 
their  persons  with  a  vapor  bath,  their  women 
applying  to  their  bodies  a  paste  which  left 
them  glossy  after  it  had  been  removed. 
They  dwelt  in  wagons,  or  in  rude  tents  con- 
sisting of  woolen  felts  arranged  around  three 
bent  sticks  inclined  towards  each  other. 
They  subsisted  on  mare's  milk  and  cheese, 
adding  at  times  boiled  beef  and  horse-flesh 
as  a  delicac}'.  They  drank  the  blood  of 
their  enemies  slain  in  battle.  They  cut  off 
the  heads  of  these  dead  foes,  and  showed 
them  to  their  kings  to  obtain  each  his  re- 
spedlive  share  of  the  spoil.  They  also  strip- 
ped the  scalps  from  the  skulls  and  suspended 
them  on  their  bridle-reins  as  trophies.  Oc- 
casionally they  flayed  the  right  arms  and 
hands  of  their  .slain  enemies,  and  u.sed  the 
skins  as  coverings  for  their  quivers.  The 
upper  part  of  the  skulls  were  usually  con- 
verted into  drinking-cups.  They  spent  the 
larger  portion  of  each  day  on  horseback,  at- 
tending on  the  vast  herds  of  cattle  which  the)- 
pastured.  They  used  the  bow,  their  favorite 
weapon,  while  riding,  shooting  their  arrows 
with  unerring  aim.  They  also  each  carried 
a  short  spear  or  javelin,  and  .sometimes  also 
a  short  sword  or  battle-ax. 

The  Scythian  nation  embraced  many  sepa- 
rate tribes.  At  the  head  of  all  was  a  royal 
tribe,  corresponding  to  the  "Golden  Horde" 
of  the  Mongols,  surpassing  in  numbers  and 
bravery  anj'  of  the  others,  and  considering 
them  all  as  slaves.  The  kings  ruled  by  he- 
reditary right,  and  their  families  belonged  to 
the  royal  tribe.  Several  kings  frequently 
ruled  at  the  same  time,  but  in  great  emer- 


gencies the  supreme  power  was  always  vir- 
tually vested  in  one  man. 

The  Scythian  religion  embraced  the  wor- 
ship of  the  vSun  and  Moon,  Fire,  Air,  Earth, 
Water,  and  a  deity  resembling  the  Greek 
Hercules;  but  the  chief  objetft  of  adoration 
was  the  naked  sword.  The  country  was 
divided  into  .sections,  in  each  of  whicli  was 
a  vast  pile  of  l)rushwood,  .serving  as  a  tem- 
ple to  the  vicinity,  and  having  planted  at  its 
top  an  antique  sword  or  cimeter.  On  a 
.specified  day  of  each  year  solemn  sacrifices 
of  human  beings  and  animals  were  offered 
at  these  shrines,  and  the  warm  blood  of  the 
victims  was  poured  upon  the  sword  at  the 
top.  The  human  vicftims  for  sacrifice,  who 
were  captives  taken  in  war,  were  hewn  to 
pieces  at  the  foot  of  the  mound:  their 
limbs  were  wildly  tossed  into  the  air  by  the 
votaries,  and  the  bloody  fragments  were  left 
where  they  had  fallen.  The  Scythians  had 
no  priest  caste,  but  they  believed  in  divina- 
tion, the  diviners  comprising  a  distincl  class 
vested  with  important  powers.  When  the 
king  was  ill  he  sent  for  these  diviners,  to  in- 
form him  of  the  cause  of  his  illness,  which 
they  generally  ascribed  to  the  circumstance 
that  an  individual,  whom  they  named,  had 
.sworn  falsely  by  the  Royal  Hearth.  Those 
accused  of  this  offense,  if  found  guilty  by 
.several  bodies  of  diviners,  were  beheaded  in 
punishment,  and  their  property  was  given 
to  their  original  accusers. 

Such  were  the  chief  charatfleristics  of  the 
Scythians,  as  described  by  Herodotus,  who 
tells  us  that  they  were  the  ruling  race  over 
a  great  part  of  the  steppe  region  extending 
from  the  river  Ister  (now  Danube)  and  the 
Carpathian  mountains  on  the  west  to  the 
eastern  limits  of  the  region  embraced  by 
niodeni  Turkestan  on  the  east.  Coarse  and 
repulsive  in  appearance,  ferocious  in  temper, 
.savage  in  habits,  and  powerful  on  account 
of  their  vast  numbers  and  a  system  of  war- 
fare not  eas)-  to  withstand,  and  in  which 
thev  had  become  expert,  they  could  well 
strike  consternation  even  into  the  strong 
and  warlike  Median  nation.  Successive 
hordes  of  Scyths  swept  through  the  passes 
of  the  Caucasus,  and  spread  ruin  and  devas- 


192 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


tation  over  the  rich  plains  to  the  south  of 
them.  Onward  they  pushed  in  swarms, 
overwhehning  and  irresistible,  overrunning 
Iberia  and  Upper  Media,  reducing  the  rich 
cultivated  country  to  a  howling  wilderness. 
They  consumed  the  crops,  carried  off  or  de- 
stroyed the  herds,  burned  the  villages  and 
homesteads,  massacred  or  enslaved  such  of 
the  inhabitants  as  did  not  escape  to  the  lofty 
mountain  summits  or  other  strongholds, 
sparing  neither  age  nor  sex,  and  converted 
the  whole  countr>'  into  a  scene  of  desolation. 
The  strongly-fortified  towns  which  resisted 
the  invading  Scyths,  when  not  starved  into 
submission,  escaped  by  consenting  to  pay  a 
tribute.  Herodotus  informs  us  that  these 
barbarians  were  masters  of  all  Western  Asia 
from  the  Caucasus  to  the  frontiers  of  Egj'pt 
for  a  period  of  twenty-eight  years;  and  their 
ravages  spread  over,  not  only  Media,  but 
Amienia,  Assyria,  Mesopotamia,  Syria  and 
Palestine. 

The  resistless  tide  of  barbarian  invasion 
continued  to  roll  on,  sweeping  from  one  re- 
gion to  another,  plundering  and  ravaging 
everywhere,  settling  nowhere.  When  the 
savage  hordes  had  reached  Southern  Pales- 
tine, the  course  of  invasion  was  stayed  by 
the  Egyptian  king,  Psammetichus,  who  was 
then  engaged  in  the  siege  of  Ashdod.  Upon 
hearing  of  the  approach  of  the  Scythian  host 
to  Ascalon,  Psammetichus  sent  an  embas.sy 
to  their  leader  and  bribed  him  by  means  of 
valuable  presents  to  abstain  from  an  inva- 
sion of  Egypt. 

Thenceforth  the  power  of  the  Scythian 
invaders  declined,  and  the  nations  whose 
armies  they  had  beaten,  whose  lands  they 
had  ravaged  with  fire  and  sword,  began  to 
recover  themselves.  Cyaxares,  King  of 
Media,  and  the  sovereigns  of  other  nations, 
drove  them  beyond  their  dominions,  many 
of  the  barbarians  returning  across  the  Cau- 
casus to  their  home-land,  large  numbers 
being  slain  in  battle  or  massacred,  and 
the  remainder  submitting  and  entering  the 
.service  of  the  native  Asian  monarchs.  The 
only  vestiges  of  this  destru(5live  Scythic 
inroad  were  the  names  of  the  Armenian 
province   thenceforth   called'  Sacasene   and 


the  Syrian  town  known  thereafter  as  Scyth- 
opolis,  a  Greek  name  signifying  City  of  the 
Scyths. 

Weakened  by  the  severity  of  the  Scythian 
attack,  Assyria  rapidl}^  declined  from  this 
time.  The  country^  had  been  ravaged  and 
depopulated,  the  provinces  had  been  plun- 
dered, many  of  the  great  towns  had  been 
pillaged,  the  palaces  of  the  kings  had  been 
burned,  and  much  of  the  gold  and  silver  had 
been  carried  away.  Assyria  was  but  the 
shadow  of  her  former  self  when  the  Scyth- 
ians retired  from  the  country.  Enfeebled 
and  exhausted,  she  was  ready  to  fall  before 
the  arms  of  a  conqueror.  Babylonia  and 
the  other  provinces  of  the  empire,  from  the 
force  of  habit  and  because  they  too  had  been 
exhausted  by  the  barbarian  inundation,  con- 
tinued loyal  to  Ass3-ria  to  the  very  last. 
Thus  Asshur-bani-pal  ruled  over  an  extens- 
ive empire  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

But  Asshur-bani-pal  died  B.  C.  626,  after 
a  reign  of  forty-two  years,  and  was  succeeded 
by  his  son,  Asshur-Emid-ilin,  called  Sara- 
cus  by  Abydenus.  He  was  the  last  Assyr- 
ian king,  and  reigned  but  one  year.  We 
have  very  few  native  records  of  this  mon- 
arch, and  the  only  classical  notices  concern- 
ing him  are  the  account  given  of  him  by 
Ctesias,  and  a  few  sentences  in  the  writings 
of  Abj'denus  and  Polj'histor.  A  few  legends 
on  bricks  inform  us  that  he  began  the  erec- 
tion of  a  palace  at  Calah,  whose  remains 
are  now  seen  at  the  south-east  part  of  the 
Nimrud  mound.  The  contrast  between  this 
unfinished  edifice  and  those  grand  royal 
residences  of  former  Assyrian  kings  clearly 
exhibited  the  waning  glorj-  of  the  mighty 
monarchy  which  had  swaj-ed  the  destinies 
of  Western  Asia  for  nearl}-  seven  centuries. 
Instead  of  the  alabaster  bas-reliefs  which 
embellished  the  palaces  of  the  predecessors 
of  this  last  Assyrian  monarch,  his  edifice 
was  adonied  with  nothing  better  than  coarse 
limestone  slabs  without  sculptures  or  inscrip- 
tions; and  in  place  of  the  enameled  bricks 
of  elegant  patterns  which  ornamented  the 
magnificent  structures  of  Sargon,  vSenna- 
cherib  and  Asshur-bani-pal,  we  find  in  this 
building  a  simple  plaster  above  the  slabs. 


POLITIC.  1 1.    HIS  TOR  V. 


193 


A  series  of  small  chambers,  none  of  which 
was  over  forU'-five  feet  long,  nor  more  than 
twenty-five  feet  in  its  greatest  width,  was 
sufficient  for  the  last  Assyrian  sovereign, 
whose  diminished  court  could  not  now  have 
filled  the  spacious  halls  of  his  predecessors. 
The  Nimrud  palace  of  Asshur-emid-ilin, 
or  Saracus,  appears  to  have  occupied  less 
than  half  the  space  covered  by  any  other 
palace  upon  the  mound.  The  decline  of 
taste  is  clearly  demonstrated  by  its  lack  of 
grand  facades  or  magnificent  gateways,  its 
small  and  inconvenient  rooms,  running  in 
suites  which  communicated  with  one  another 
without  any  entrances  from  courts  or  pas- 
sages, composed  of  sun-dried  bricks  faced 
with  limestone  and  plaster,  and  roughl}^ 
paved  with  limestone  flags.  The  mere  facfl 
that  Saracus  should  have  entertained  the 
thought  of  making  his  residence  in  a  struc- 
ture of  so  poor  and  mean  a  characfter  is  the 
most  convincing  evidence  of  Ass3'ria's  de- 
cadence and  degeneracy  on  the  eve  of  her 
overthrow.  The  rude  condition  of  this 
palace,  and  its  entire  want  of  elegant  orna- 
mentation, is  to  be  partially  accounted  for 
by  the  circumstance  that  Saracus  perished, 
along  with  his  capital  and  his  empire,  before 
he  had  time  to  complete  the  edifice. 

While  this  building  was  undergoing  erec- 
tion Saracus    held    his  court  at    Nineveh, 
where  he  prepared  to  defend  himself  against 
the   enemy  who,   taking  advantage  of  his 
powerless  condition,  lost  no  time  in  pressing 
forward   the  conquest  of  his  rapidly-decay- 
ing and  declining  empire.     The  Medes,  fa- 
vored by  nature  in  their  land  of  rocky  hills 
and  inaccessible  mountain  chains,  did  not 
suffer   as  much    from    the   ravages   of  the 
Scyths  as  did  the  Assyrians  in  their  defense- 
less plains;  and  they  were  the  first  of  the 
nations  exposed  to  the  barbarian  inundation 
to  recover  from  its  destrucftive  effects.    Hav- 
ing repulsed  the  Scyths  and  expelled  them 
from    his   country,    Cyaxares,    the    warlike 
monarch    who    founded    the   great    Median 
Empire,  led  a  large  anny  into  Ass>ria   from 
the  east;  while  his  allies,  the  Susianians,  en- 
tered the  country  in  force  from  the  south. 
To  defend  his  countrv  against  this  double 


invasion,  Saracus,  the  last  of  the  great  dy- 
nasty founded  by  Sargon,  divided  his  forces, 
retaining  a  portion  under  his  own  command 
to  oppose  the  Medes,  while  he  assigned  the 
other  part  to  his  general,  Nabopola.ssar, 
whom  he  ordered  to  Babylon  to  check  the 
advance  of  the  Su.sianians.  But  Nabopo- 
lassar,  .seeing  his  own  opportunity  in  his 
sovereign's  perilous  dilemma,  turned  traitor, 
and,  instead  of  fighting  loyally  against  the 
foes  of  Assyria,  he  entered  into  .secret  nego- 
tiations with  Cj'axares,  agreeing  to  an  alli- 
ance with  him  against  the  Assyrians,  and  ob- 
taining the  daughter  of  the  Median  king  as 
a  bride  for  his  eldest  son,  Nebuchadnezzar. 
Uniting  their  forces,  Cyaxares  and  Nabopo- 
lassar  jointly  attacked  Nineveh;  whereupon 
Saracus,  or  Asshur-emid-ilin,  unable  to  de- 
fend his  capital,  and  overcome  by  despair, 
.set  fire  to  his  palace  and  perished  in  the 
flames.  The  once-proud  city  of  Nineveh 
was  plundered  and  destroyed  by  the  con- 
quering Medes  and  their  allies. 

The  account  of  the  downfall  of  As.syria 
as  related  by  Ctesias  is  so  fanciful  that  it  is 
utterl}-  discarded  by  the  best  modem  histo- 
rians. He  says  that  the  Medes  were  accompa- 
nied by  the  Persians,  and  the  Babylonians 
by  some  Arab  allies,  and  that  the  a.ssailing 
army  numbered  four  hundred  thousand  men. 
In  the  first  engagement  the  Assyrians  were 
victorious,  and  the  attacking  army  was 
driven  to  the  Zagros  mountains.  A  second 
and  a  third  attack  likewise  failed.  The  tide 
of  battle  turned  in  favor  of  the  assailants 
upon  the  arrival  of  a  strong  reenforcement 
from  Badlria,  when  a  night  attack  upon  the 
Assyrian  camp  was  crowned  with  complete 
success.  The  Assyrian  king  sought  refuge 
in  his  capital,  leaving  his  army  under  the 
command  of  his  brother-in-law,  Sala;menes, 
who  was  soon  defeated  and  slain.  The  siege 
of  Nine\-eh  then  began,  and  lasted  over  two 
years  without  any  result.  An  unusually 
wet  sea.son  in  the  third  year  of  the  siege 
caused  an  extraordinary  rise  in  the  Tigris, 
destroA'ing  more  than  two  miles  of  the  city 
wall;  whereupon  the  king,  who  had  been 
told  b)'  an  oracle  to  fear  nothing  luitil  the 
river  became  his  enemy,  yielding  to  despair, 


194 


ANCIENT   HISTOR } '.—ASSYRIA. 


made  a  funeral  pile  of  all  his  richest  furni- 
ture, and  burnt  himself  with  his  concubines 
and  his  eunuchs  in  his  palace.  The  Medes 
and  their  allies  thereupon  entering  the  city  on 
the  side  laid  open  by  the  flood,  phnidered 
and  destroyed  it.  This  description  of  the 
last  siege  of  Nineveh,  as  related  by  Ctesias, 
has  been  transmitted  to  posterity  through  the 


WINGED   MAN-HEADED    BULI.. 
Now  in  British  Museum. 

writings  of  Diodorus  Siculus,  and,  like  most 
of  his  statements,  is  unworthy  of  credit. 

Thus  fell  the  mighty  Assj'rian  Empire, 
not  so  much  from  any  inherent  weakness 
as  by  an  unfortunate  combination  of  circum- 
stances— the  invasion  of  the  powerful  and 
warlike  Medes  when  the  empire  had  been 
exhausted  by  the  terrible  inroad  of  the 
Scyths,  and  the  treason  and  perfid}'  of  its 
leading  general.  With  the  destru(5lion  of 
the  empire  the  A.ssyrian  race  sank  into  ob- 
livion, and  Assyrian  history  ceased  forever. 
Assyria  upon  its  downfall  was  divided  be- 
tween its  conquerors,  the  portion  east  of  the 
Tigris  falling  to  Media,  and  the  part  west 
of  the  river  being  absorbed  by  Babylonia. 
By  the  successive  changes  in  this  part  of 
Asia,  the  countn,'  has  continually  changed 
niasters,  being  successivelj-  under  the  Medo- 
Persian,  Grseco-Macedonian,  Syrian,  Par- 
thian, New  Persian,  Saracen,  Seljuk,  Mon- 
gol, and  for  the  last  five  centuries  under 
the  Ottoman  Turkish,  dominion.  The 
country  now  forms  part  of  the  Turkish 
province  of  Kurdistan,  and  the  half-savage 
modern  Kurds  are  the  diredl  descendants 
of  the  renowned  ancient  Assyrians.  The 
palaces  in  which  Sargon,  Sennacherib,  Esar- 


haddon  and  Asshur-bani-pal  dwelt  in  lux- 
ury- and  splendor,  after  lying  imbedded  be- 
neath the  mounds  and  ruins  of  twenty-five' 
centuries,  have  in  our  day,  thanks  to  the 
enterprise  and  diligence  of  patient  explorers 
like  Layard  and  Botta,  been  brought  out  of 
their  long  concealment  to  the  light  of  the 
modern  world;  and  many  wonderful  sculp- 
tures from  the  great  cities  of  ancient  As- 
syria now  adorn  the  museums  of  London, 
Paris  and  Berlin.  The  great  cities  of  As- 
shur,  Calah,  Dur-Sargina  and  Nineveh, 
with  their  magnificent  royal  residences,  their 
busy  shops  and  fadlories  teeming  with  the 
producfts  of  industry,  their  crowded  thorough- 
fares in  which  vidlorious  warrior-kings  were 
greeted  with  the  applause  of  their  sub- 
je<5ts  and  the  triumphant  .shouts  of  their 
stalwart  and  invincible  soldiery,  now  exist 
only  in  the  records  and  memory  of  their 
past  glory  and  greatness,  and  in  the  ruins 
on  the  mounds  of  Kileh-Sherghat,  Nimrud, 
Khorsabad  and  Koyunjik,  only  tenanted  by 
the  wandering  Kurds  watching  their  herds 


WINGED    MAN-HEADED    LION. 
Now  in  British  Museum. 

and  flocks,  and  resounding  with  the  jackal's 
howl  after  the  sun  in  its  daily  course  has 
sunk  to  rest  beneath  the  western  horizon. 

The  independent  kingdom  of  Assyria 
lasted  about  a  thousand  years,  but  the  em- 
pire covered  a  little  less  than  the  last  seven 
centuries  of  this  period,  from  B.  C.  1300  to 
B.  C.  625,  when  it  fell  before  the  arms  of 
the  Medes,  or  more  properly  onl>-  about  five 
centuries,  from  B.  C.  11 50.  The  power  and. 
extent  of  the  empire  culminated  during  the 
brilliant  reign  of  Asshur-bani-pal,  just  be- 
fore its  rapid  decline  and  sudden  fall. 


THE   DI'ATH    OF   SARACUS. 


POL  I TICAL    HIS  TOR } : 


195 


KINGS   OF  ASSYRIA. 


B.  C. 


B.  C. 


About  1440  to  1420. 

"     1420  to  I4<KX 

"   1400  to  13S0. 


1380  to  1360. 
1360  to  1340. 
1340  to  1320. 
1320  to  1300. 


1300  to  12S0. 


Bei,-sumii,i-kapi 

»   *   »   »   • 
IRBA-VUI, 

*  »  *  «  i 

ASSHUR-IDDIN-AKHI 


ASSHUR-BIL-NISI-Sl'       .  .     . 

BUZUR-ASSHUR  (successor)     . 
AssHUR-UPALLiT  (successor) 


Bel-lush  (his  son)   .   .   .   . 

PUD-IL  (his  son) 

VuL-LUSH  I.  (his  sou)   .    .    . 
Shalmaneser  I.  (his  son) 


TiGLATHi-Nix  I.  (his  son) 


1230  to  12  ro.      Bel-kudur-uzur 


1210  to  1 190. 
1 190  to  1 1 70 
1 1 70  to  1 1 50 
1 150  to  1 130. 
1 130  to  1 1 10. 
mo  to  1090 
1090  to  1070 


930  to  911 
911  to  SS9 
889  to  88  ■; 
883  to  85S 
858  to  823 
823  to  810 
8:0  to  781 
781  to  771 
771  to  753 
753  to  745 


745  to  727  . 
727  to  722  . 
722  to  705  . 
705  to  681  . 
681  to  668  . 
668  to  626  . 
626  to  625  . 


Nin-pala-zira  (successor)     . 
ASSHUR-DAYAN  I.  (his  Son)     . 
MuTAGGIL-Nebo  (his  son) 
ASSHUR-RIS-ILIM  (hissou) 

Tiglath-Pileser  I.  (his  son) 
ASSHUR-BIL-KALA  I  his  son)  . 
Shamas-Vl'L  I.  (his  brother) 


ASSHUR-MAZUR 


Asshur-davan  II 

VuL-LUSH  II.  (his  son)     .    . 
TiGLATHi-NiN  II.  (his  son) 
AssHUR-iziR-p.\L  (his  son) 
Sh.almaneser  II.  (his  son) 
Sh.\mas-Vul  II.  (his  son) 
VuL-LUSH  III.  (his  son)  . 
Shalmaneser  III.  .   .   . 

ASSHUR-D.\YAN  III.   .     .     . 
ASSHUR-LUSH        


TiGLATH-PlLESER  II.   . 

Shalm.\neser  IV.    .    . 

vS.VRGON 

Senn-^cherib  (his  son 
Es.\R-HADnoN  (his  son 
ASSHUR-B.AXI-PAL  (his  son) 
Asshur-emid-ilin  (his  son) 


Called  the  foumler  of  the  kingdom  on  a 
genealogical  tablet. 

Mentioned  by  Tiglath-Pileser  I.  as  a  former 
king.  A  very  archaic  tablet  in  the  British 
Museum  is  ilated  in  his  reign. 

Mentioned  by  Tiglath-Pileser  I.  as  a  former 
king, 


Mentioned  on  a  synchronistic  tablet,  > 
which  connects  them  with  the  time 
of    Purna-puriyas,    the    Chaldiean 
king.       .'isshur-upallit    mentioned 
on  Kileh-Shcrghat  bricks. 

Names  and  succession  found  on  i 
Kileh-Sherghat  bricks,  vases,  etc. 
Shalmaneser  I.  mentioned  also  on 
a  genealogical  slab  and  in  the 
standard  inscription  of  Nimrud. 

Mentioned  on  a  genealogical  tablet. 
Called  "the  conqueror  of  Babylon," 
and  placed  by  Sennacherib  600 
years  before  his  own  capture  of 
Babylonia  in  B.  C.  703. 

Mentioned  on  the  synchronistic  tablet 
as  the  predecessor  of  Nin-pala-zira. 

Names  and  relationship  given  in 
cylinder  of  Tiglath-Pileser  I. 

\  Mentioned  on  the  synchronistic  tab- 
'       let   above    spoken   of.      Date   of  I 

1       Tiglath-Pileser    I.    fixed    by    the  f 
)       Bavian  inscription.     Dates  of  the  I 
other  kings  calculated  from  his  at 
twenty  years  to  a  generation. 

Mentioned  in  an  inscription  of  Shal- 
maneser II. 

The  kings  from  .\sshur-dayan  II.  to 
Vul-lush  III.  are  proved  to  have 
been  in  direcl;  succession  by  the 
Kileh-Sherghat  and  Nimrud  monu- 
ments. The  last  nine  reigns  are 
given  in  the  Assyrian  Canon.  The 
Canon  is  the  sole  authority  for  the 
last  three.  The  dates  of  the  whole 
series  are  determined  from  the 
Canon  of  Ptolemy  by  calculating 
back  from  B.  C.  680,  his  date  for 
the  accession  of  Esar-haddon 
(Asaridanus).  They  might  also  be  / 
fixed  from  the  year  of  the  great  / 
eclipse. 


2 

> 

w 
s 

■a 
n 


The  years  of  these  kings,  from  Esar- 
haddon  upwards,  are  taken  from 
the  Assyrian  Canon.  The  dates 
accord  strictly  with  the  Canon  of 
Ptolemy.  The  last  year  of  Asshur- 
bani-pal  is  to  some  extent  conjec- 
tural. 


196 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


SECTION    IV.— ASSYRIAN    CIVILIZATION. 


llAYS  Professor  Rawlinson: 
"The  nature  of  the  dominion 
estabhshed  by  the  great  Meso- 
potamian  monarch}'  o\-er  the 
countries  inchided  within  the 
limits  above  indicated,  will  perhaps  be  best 
understood  if  we  compare  it  with  the  empire 
of  Solomon.  Solomon  'reigned  over  all  the 
kingdoms  from  the  ri\-er  (Euphrates)  unto  the 
land  of  the  Philistines  and  unto  the  border 
ofEgj'pt:  they  broiiglil  presents  and  served 
Solomon  all  the  days  of  his  life. '  The  first 
and  most  striking  feature  of  the  earliest  em- 
pires is  that  they  are  a  mere  congeries  of 
kingdoms;  the  countries  over  which  the 
dominant  state  acquires  an  influence,  not 
only  retain  their  distindl  individuality,  as  is 
the  case  in  some  modern  empires,  but  re- 
main in  all  respe(5ls  such  as  thej'  were  before, 
with  the  simple  addition  of  certain  obliga- 
tions contradled  towards  the  paramount  au- 
thority. They  keep  their  old  laws,  their 
old  religion,  their  line  of  kings,  their  law  of 
succession,  their  whole  internal  organization 
and  machiner}';  they  only  acknowledge  an 
external  suzerainty  which  binds  them  to  the 
performance  of  certain  duties  towards  the 
Head  of  the  Empire.  These  duties,  as  un- 
derstood in  the  earliest  times,  may  be 
summed  up  in  the  two  words  '  homage '  and 
'tribute;'  the  subjecft  kings  'serve'  and 
'bring  presents.'  They  are  bound  to  acfts 
of  sulamission;  must  attend  the  court  of  their 
suzerain  when  summoned,  unless  they  have 
a  reasonable  excu.se;  must  there  salute  him 
as  a  superior,  and  otherwise  acknowledge 
his  rank;  abo\-e  all,  they  must  pay  him  reg- 
vilarl)'  the  fixed  tribute  which  has  been  im- 
posed upon  them  at  the  time  of  their  sub- 
mission or  .subjecftion,  the  unauthorized  with- 
holding of  which  is  open  and  avowed  rebell- 
ion. Finally,  the)'  must  allow  his  troops 
free  passage  through  their  dominions,  and 
must  oppose  any  attempt  at  invasion  by  way 
of  their  country  on  the  part  of  his  enemies. 
Such  are  the  earliest  and  most  es.sential  obli- 
gations on  the  part  of  the  subjecl  states  in 


an  empire  of  the  primitive  type,  like  that  of 
Assj'ria;  and  these  obligations,  with  the  cor- 
responding one  on  the  part  of  the  dominant 
power  of  the  prote6lion  of  its  dependents 
against  foreign  foes,  appear  to  have  consti- 
tuted the  sole  links  which  joined  together 
in  one  the  heterogeneous  materials  of  which 
that  empire  consisted.  *         *        * 

"Such,  in  its  broad  and  general  outlines, 
was  the  empire  of  the  Assyrians.  It  em- 
bodied the  earliest,  simplest  and  most  crude 
conception  which  the  human  mind  forms  of 
a  widely  extended  dominion.  It  was  a 
'kingdom-empire,'  like  the  empires  of  Solo- 
mon, of  Nebuchadnezzar,  of  Chedor-laomer, 
and  probabl)'  of  Cyaxares,  and  is  the  best 
specimen  of  its  class,  being  the  largest,  the 
longest  in  duration,  and  the  best  known  of 
of  all  such  governments  that  has  existed. 
It  exhibits  in  a  marked  way  both  the  strength 
and  weakness  of  this  class  of  monarchies 
— their  strength  in  the  extraordinary  mag- 
nificence, grandeur,  wealth,  and  refine- 
ment of  the  capital ;  their  weakness  in  the 
impoverishment,  the  exhau.stion,  and  the 
consequent  dLsaffeetion  of  the  subjecft  states. 
Ever  falling  to  pieces,  it  was  perpetually  re- 
constru(fled  bj'  the  genius  and  prowess  of  a 
long  succession  of  warrior  princes,  seconded 
by  the  skill  and  bravery  of  the  people.  For- 
tunate in  having  for  a  long  time  no  very 
powerful  neighbors,  it  found  little  difficult)' 
in  extending  itself  throughout  regions  di- 
vided and  subdivided  among  hundreds  of 
petty  chiefs,  incapable  of  union,  and  singly 
quite  unable  to  contend  with  the  forces  of  a 
large  and  populous  countn,'.  Frequently 
endangered  by  revolts,  yet  always  triumph- 
ing over  them,  it  maintained  itself  for  five 
centuries,  gradually  advancing  its  influence, 
and  was  only  overthrown  after  a  fierce  strug- 
gle by  a  new  kingdom  formed  upon  its  bor- 
ders, which,  taking  advantage  of  a  time  of 
exhaustion,  and  leagued  with  the  most  pow- 
erful of  the  subjetl  states,  was  enabled  to 
accomplish  the  destrucftion  of  the  long-domi- 
nant people. ' ' 


CJ17L/ZA  nOiV. 


197 


As  in  the  case  of  the  Chaldaeans,  it  was 
formerly  a  subjecl  of  dispute  as  to  what 
branch  of  the  Caucasian  race  the  Assyrians 
belonged;  but  it  has  now  been  definitely  de- 
termined b>-  the  evidence  of  language,  as 
well  as  the  testimony  of  the  Hebrew  ac- 
counts, that  the  Chaldseans  were  mainly  a 
Hamitic,  or  Cushite  race,  fused  slightly  with 
Semitic,  Aryan  and  Turanian  elements;  while 
the  Assyrians  are  found  to  have  been  pure 
Semites,  and  therefore  a  kindred  people  with 
the  Hebrews,  or  Israelites,  the  Arabs,  the 
Syrians,  or  Aramaeans,  and  the  Phcenicians. 
The  Mosaic  genealogies  connedted  Asshur 
with  Aram,  Eber  and  Joktan,  the  progeni- 
tors respedlively  of  the  Aramaeans,  or  Syrians, 
the  Israelites,  or  Hebrews,  and  the  Northern, 
or  Joktanian,  Arabs.  The  languages,  pln^s- 
ical  types  and  moral  characteristics  of  these 
races  were  well  known,  as  they  all  belonged 
to  a  single  family — to  what  ethnologists  and 
philologists  call  the  Semitic  family.  The 
manners  and  customs,  particularh'  the  re- 
ligious customs,  of  the  Assyrians  were  iden- 
tical with  tho.se  of  the  Syrians  and  Phoe- 
nicians. The  modem  Chaldaeans  of  Kur- 
distan, who  consider  themselves  descendants 
of  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  the  neighbor- 
ing Assyria,  still  speak  a  Semitic  dialect — 
a  fadl  discovered  and  reported  bj'  the  elder 
Niebuhr,  and  confirmed  by  Mr.  Ainsworth. 
These  three  circumstances  are  sufficient 
evidence  that  the  Assyrians  were  Semites, 
being  closely  allied  in  race  with  the  Sj'rians, 
the  Later  Babylonians,  the  Phoenicians,  the 
Israelites  and  the  Northern  Arabs ;  and 
recent  linguistic  discoveries  have  fully  con- 
firmed this  view.  We  now  have  in  the  en- 
gra^•ed  slabs,  the  clay  tablets,  the  cylinders 
and  the  bricks,  excavated  from  the  ruins  of 
the  great  Assyrian  cities,  abundant  docu- 
mentarj"  testimony  of  the  character  of  the 
Assyrian  language,  and  of  the  ethnic  char- 
adler  of  the  people.  All  who  have  examined 
this  evidence  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion 
that  the  language  of  these  records  is  Semi- 
tic, and  that  it  is  closely  connected  with  the 
Hebrew,  the  Syriac,  the  Later  Babj'loniau 
and  the  Arabic. 

The  physical  characteristics  of  the  Assyr- 


ians, as  disclosed  to  us  by  their  sculptures, 
also  confirm  this  view.  Their  sculptured 
effigies  bear  the  most  striking  resemblance 
to  the  Jewish  physiognomy.  The  low  and 
straight  forehead,  the  full  brow,  the  large 
and  almond-shaped  eye,  the  aquiline  nose  a 
little  coar-se  at  the  end  and  unduly  depressed, 
the  strong  and  firm  mouth  with  over-thick 
lips,  the  well-fomied  chin — best  observed  in 
the  representation  of  eunuchs — the  thick 
hair  and  heavy  beard,  both  of  black  color — 
all  these,  as  exhibited  by  the  Assyrian 
sculptures,  display  a  remarkable  likeness  to 
the  striking  peculiarities  of  the  Jewish  head 
and  face,  and  also  bear  somewhat  of  a  re- 
semblance to  the  ph}-siognomy  of  the  Arabs, 
and  to  all  branches  of  the  Semitic  race. 
These  traits  are  now  common  to  the  Jew, 
the  Arab  and  the  Kurd,  while  in  ancient 
times  they  characterized  the  Assyrians,  Syr- 
ians, Phoenicians,  Hebrews  and  the  minor 
Semitic  nations.  The  Egyptian  sculptures 
of  Amunoph  III.,  as  representing  the  Pa- 
tena,  or  people  of  Bashan;  the  Asuru,  or  As- 
syrians; and  the  Karukamishi,  or  people  of 
Carchemish,  show  us  the  same  type  of  physi- 
ognom)-,  which  the  Egyptians  regarded  as 
common  to  all  the  nations  of  Western  Asia. 
In  shape  the  Assyrians  are  most  truly  repre- 
sented by  their  descendants,  the  modern 
Chaldaeans  of  Kurdistan.  Like  the  modern 
Kurd,  the  Assyrian  was  robust  and  stalwart 
in  bodily  frame,  with  broad  shoulders  and 
large  limbs.  The  monuments  of  no  other 
people  show  us  so  strong  a  race  in  muscular 
development  as  the  ancient  Assyrian.  The 
large  brawny  limbs  of  this  resolute  and 
sturdy  people,  whom  Rawlinson  fitly  calls 
"the  Romans  of  Asia,  "  indicate  a  physical 
power  belonging  to  no  other  nation. 

The  mental  and  moral  characteristics  of 
the  Jews  and  the  Assyrians  also  bore  the 
clo.sest  analogy.  In  each  the  religious  sen- 
timent was  peculiarly  predominant.  The 
inscriptions  of  Assj-rian  kings  begin  and  end 
with  praises,  invocations  and  prayers  to 
their  chief  deities.  All  the  king's  victories 
and  conquests,  his  successful  feats  in  the 
chase  of  the  lion  and  the  wild  bull,  are  as- 
cribed to  the  protection  and  favor  of  the 


198 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


gods.  Thus  Tiglath-Pileser  1.  says  in  his 
cyhnder:  "Under  the  auspices  of  Ninip,  my 
guardian  deity,  I  killed  four  wild  bulls 
strong  and  fierce; ' '  and  ' '  lender  the  auspices 
of  Ninip,  one  hundred  and  twenty  lions  fell 
before  me.  "  One  of  A.sshur-bani-pal's 
sculptured  in.scriptions  says:  "I,  Asshur- 
bani-pal,  king  of  the  nations,  king  of  As- 
syria, in  my  great  courage  fighting  on  foot 
with  a  lion,  terrible  for  his  size,  seized  him 
by  the  ear,  and  in  the  name  of  Asshur  and 
Ishtar,  Goddess  of  War,  with  the  spear  that 
was  in  my  hand  I  terminated  his  life." 
Wherever  the  Assyrian  monarch  led  his 
conquering  hosts,  he  "set  up  the  emblems 
of  Asshur,"  or  of  "the  great  gods;"  and 
compelled  the  vanquished  to  render  them 
homage.  The  most  precious  of  the  spoils 
of  conquest  were  dedicated  as  thank-offerings 
in  the  temples.  The  temples  themselves 
were  adorned,  repaired,  beautified,  enlarged 
and  multiplied  numerically  by  most  of  the 
Assyrian  sovereigns.  The  kings  worshiped 
in  these  temples  in  person  and  offered  sacri- 
fices. They  embelli.shed  their  palaces  with 
religious  figures,  such  as  emblems  of  chief 
deities  and  illustrations  of  a(5ls  of  adoration, 
as  well  as  with  representations  of  their  vic- 
tories in  war  and  their  exploits  in  hunting. 
Their  signets,  and  tho.se  of  the  Assj-rians 
generally,  are  religious  in  characfler.  In 
every  respecft  religion  occupies  an  important 
place  among  the  Assyrians,  who  fight  more 
for  the  honor  of  their  gods  than  for  their 
king,  and  aspire  as  nuich  toward  extending 
their  religion  as  their  dominion. 

As  in  the  Jewish  religion,  we  perceive  in 
the  Assyrian  SN'stem  a  .sensuousness  con- 
tending with  a  higher  and  purer  element, 
which  in  this  case  reigns  uncontrolled,  giv- 
ing a  gross,  material  and  voluptuous  char- 
adler  to  its  religion.  This  pra(5lical  people 
cared  ver>-  little  for  the  spiritual  and  the 
ideal,  and,  not  being  satisfied  with  symbols, 
made  idols,  or  images,  of  wood  and  stone 
to  represent  their  gods;  and  their  intricate 
mythological  .system,  with  its  priestly  hie- 
rarchy, its  magnificent  ceremonial  and  las- 
civious ceremonies,  resembled  that  of  Egj'pt, 
and  thus  differed  from  that  of  the  Jews. 


The  Hebrew  Scriptures  represent  the  As- 
syrians as  "a  fierce  people."  Their  per- 
sonal valor  and  courage,  and  their  skill  and 
superiority  over  all  other  nations  in  the  art 
of  war,  gave  them  their  vidlories  over  their 
less-civilized  neighbors  and  enemies.  The 
valor  and  courage  of  the  Assyrians,  like  that 
of  the  Romans,  was  kept  up  by  constant 
wars,  and  by  the  cultivation  of  their  manly 
charadleristics,  developed  in  the  pursuit  and 
.slaying  of  ferocious  beasts.  The  lion  and 
other  fierce  and  dangerous  animals  infested 
Assyria;  and,  unlike  other  Asiatics,  who 
tremble  with  fear  before  the  great  beasts  of 
prey  and  avoid  an  encounter  with  them  by 
flight  if  pos.sible,  the  ancient  Assyrians 
hunted  the  strongest,  and  fiercest  animals, 
provoked  them  to  a  collision  and  engaged 
with  them  in  close  combat.  The  spirit  of 
Nimrod,  "the  mighty  hunter  before  the 
Lord,"  which  animated  his  own  people,  the 
Chaldseans,  inspired  to  even  a  greater  extent 
their  northern  neighliors,  the  A.s.syrians,  ac- 
cording to  the  evidence  afforded  us  by  the 
monuments.  The  Ass^-rians,  from  the  sov- 
ereign to  the  lowest  subject,  delighted  es- 
pecially in  hunting  the  lion  and  the  wild 
bull,  noted  for  their  .strength  and  courage, 
and  to  attack  either  of  which  was  to  incur 
extreme  peril. 

The  Assyrians  were  not  only  a  brave  and 
hardy  people,  but  also  verj-  fierce  and  fero- 
cious in  their  nature.  In  the  language  of 
the  Hebrew  prophet  Isaiah,  the  Assyrian 
nation  was  "a  mighty  and  a  strong  one, 
which,  as  a  tempest  of  hail  and  a  destroy- 
ing storm,  as  a  flood  of  mighty  waters  o\'er- 
flowing,  cast  down  to  the  earth  with  the 
hand."  The  Lsraelitish  prophet  Nahum 
could  well  describe  Nineveh  as  "a  bloody 
city,"  or  "a  city  of  bloods."  In  this  fierce 
dispo.sition  the  Assyrians  were  not  unlike 
other  conquering  races,  few  of  which  have 
been  tender-hearted,  or  inclined  to  spare  a 
vanquished  foe.  Carnage,  ruin  and  desola- 
lation  marked  the  course  of  an  Assyrian 
army,  and  excited  feelings  of  fear  and  ani- 
mosity among  their  enemies.  Assyrian 
fierceness  was,  howe\-er,  often  tempered  with 
clemency.      The    slain    foe    was   nuitilated 


CIVILIZATION, 


199 


not  by  way  of  insult,  hut  as  a  proof  of  the 
slayer's  prowess,  perhaps  to  obtain  a  reward 
given  for  heads,  as  has  frequently  been  the 
case  with  Orientals.  Scribes  are  often  rep- 
resented on  the  sculptures  taking  an  account 
of  the  heads  cut  ofif.  Otherwise  the  Ass3-r- 
ians  had  no  actually  cruel  customs.  Thej' 
readily  gave  quarter  when  asked  for,  and 
chose  rather  to  take  prisoners  than  to  mas- 
sacre. They  were  ven'  terrible  foes  to  en- 
counter in  battle  and  to  withstand  in  an 
attack,  but  in  the  hour  of  triumph  they 
forgave  and  spared  the  fallen  foe.  The  ex- 
ceptions to  this  general  clemency  were  in 
the  cases  of  the  .subjugation  of  rebellious 
towns,  wherein  the  most  guilty  of  the  rebell- 
ion were  impaled  on  stakes,  and  in  several 
instances  prisoners  are  represented  on  the 
sculptures  as  being  led  before  the  king  by  a 
rope  fastened  to  a  ring  passing  through  the 
under  lip,  while  occasionally  one  appears  as 
being  flayed  with  a  knife.  But  usually  cap- 
tives were  either  released,  or  transferred, 
without  unnecessar>-  suffering,  from  their 
own  country^  to  another  part  of  the  Assj-rian 
Empire;  there  being  some  exceptional  cases, 
where  the  captives  were  urged  onwards  by 
blows,  like  tired  cattle,  and  where  they 
were  heavily  fettered.  Captive  women  were 
never  manacled,  but  were  treated  with  real 
tenderness,  being  frequently  permitted  to 
ride  on  mules  or  in  carts. 

The  greatest  \-ice  of  the  Assyrians  seems  to 
have  been  their  treachery.  Saj-s  the  Hebrew 
prophet  Isaiah :  ' '  Woe  to  thee  that  spoilest, 
though  thon  wast  not  spoiled,  and  dealest 
treacherously,  though  they  dealt  not  treach- 
erously with  thee!"  The  prophet  Nahum 
declared  Nineveh  to  be  "full  of  lies  and  rob- 
bery." Isaiah  further  declared,  in  alluding 
to  the  Ass3'rian  king:  "  He  hath  broken  the 
covenant,  he  hath  despised  the  cities,  he  re- 
gardeth  no  man."  But  the  denunciations 
of  the  Assyrians  for  cruelty-  or  treachery  by 
Jewish  prophets  and  writers  would  carry 
more  weight  if  the  Hebrew  hi.story  did  not 
alx)und  with  tales  of  barbarous  cruelty, 
bloodshed,  treachery  and  crime. 

Another  failing  in  the  characfter  of  the 
Assyrians  was  their  pride,  which  is  especi- 


ally denounced  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures, 
where  it  is  expressly  declared  to  have  called 
forth  the  Divine  judgments  upon  the  nation. 
Says  the  pnii)het  ICzekiel:  "Because  thou 
hast  lifted  uji  thyself  in  height,  and  he  hath 
shot  his  to])  among  the  thick  boughs,  and 
his  heart  is  lifted  up  in  his  height;  I  have 
therefore  delivered  him  into  the  hand  of  the 
mighty  one  of  the  heathen;  he  shall  surely 
deal  with  him;  I  have  driven  him  out  for  his 
wickedness. ' '  The  prophets  Isaiah,  Ezekiel 
and  Zephaniah  alike  denounce  Assyrian 
pride.  This  characteristic  everj^where  per- 
vades the  Assyrian  inscriptions.  The  As- 
syrians considered  themselves  greatly  supe- 
rior to  all  other  nations.  They  alone  were 
favored  by  the  gods.  They  only  were  really 
wise  or  acftually  brave.  The  armed  hosts 
of  their  foes  were  chased  before  thera  like 
chaff  before  the  wind.  Their  enemies  were 
afraid  to  fight,  or  were  at  once  defeated  with 
ease.  They  carried  their  arms  in  triumph 
wherever  they  pleased,  and  never  acknowl- 
edged that  they  had  experienced  a  reverse. 
The  only  merit  that  they  admitted  other 
people  to  possess  was  some  skill  in  the  me- 
chanical and  mimetic  arts,  and  this  ac- 
knowledgment was  only  tacitly  made  bj- 
employing  foreign  artists  to  ornament  their 
edifices. 

The  Greek  accounts  as  gi\en  by  Ctesias, 
and  transmitted  therefrom  to  the  E.omans 
and  through  them  to  the  modems,  repre- 
sented luxurious  living  and  sensuality  as  the 
predominant  \-ice  of  Assyrian  monarchs, 
from  Ninyas  to  Sardanapalns,  from  the  ori- 
gin to  the  overthrow  of  the  Assyrian  Em- 
pire. The  entire  race  of  Assyrian  sovereigns 
are  thus  represented  as  voluptuaries,  who  car- 
ried into  practice  the  principle  that  human 
happiness  consisted  in  freedom  from  all  cares 
or  troubles,  and  in  unrestrained  indulgence 
in  every  kind  of  sensual  pleasure.  This  ac- 
count is  directly  contradicted  by  the  au- 
thentic records  which  the  Assyrian  monu- 
ments and  sculptures  funiish  us  conceniing 
the  warlike  character  and  manly  pursuits  of 
so  large  a  number  of  the  monarchs.  Never- 
theless in  .so  flourishing  a  monarchy  as  As- 
syria luxury   did    gradually   advance;    and 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  )  '.—ASS  }  'RIA. 


when  the  Empire  fell  before  the  combined 
attack  of  two  powerful  neighboring  king- 
doms, it  had  lost  much  of  its  old-time  vigor. 
There  is  only  one  passage  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment ascribing  luxury  and  sensuality  as  a 
cause  of  the  downfall  of  Assyria.  The 
usual  faults  for  which  Jewish  prophets  gen- 
erally denounced  the  Assyrians  are  their 
violence,  treachery  and  pride.  When  Nin- 
eveh repented  in  Jonah's  time  it  was  by  each 
man  having  ' '  turned  from  his  e\'il  way  and 
from  the  violence  which  was  in  their  hands." 
When  Nahum  announced  the  final  over- 
throw, it  was  "the  bloody  city,  full  of  lies 
and  robbery."  In  the  figurative  language 
of  the  prophet,  the  lion  was  selected  as  the 
s}-mbol  of  Assyria,  even  at  the  close  of 
her  histon,-.  Thus  Assyria  is  still  repre- 
sented as  ' '  the  lion  that  did  tear  in  pieces 
enough  for  his  whelps,  and  strangled  for  his 
lionesses,  and  filled  his  holes  with  prey,  and 
his  dens  with  ravin."  The  chosen  national 
emblem  of  Assyria  is  thus  accepted  as  the 
true  type  of  her  people  ;  and  blood,  ra\-in 
and  robbery  are  the  Assyrian  qualities  in  the 
view  of  the  Jewi.sh  prophet. 

The  Assyrians  were  among  the  foremost 
Asiatic  nations  in  mental  power.  Though 
they  derived  the  elements  of  their  civiliza- 
tion originally  from  their  mother  countrj-, 
Chaldcea,  they  excelled  their  instructors  in 
many  particulars,  and  rendered  the  old  arts 
more  valuable  by  continual  improvements. 
Their  language,  arts  and  government  attest 
their  native  genius,  and  are  advances  upon 
what  had  previously  prevailed  in  Mesopo- 
tamia and  in  the  world.  The  Assyrians 
were  the  superiors  of  the  highly-lauded 
Eg>'ptians  in  many  essential  particulars. 
The  progressive  characfter  and  .spirit  of  As- 
syrian art  contrasts  most  strongly  with  the 
stiff,  lifeless  and  fixed  conventionalism  of 
the  Egyptian.  The  Assyrian  language  and 
alphabet  are  an  advance  upon  the  Egyptian. 
The  A.s.syrian  religion  is  more  earnest  and 
less  degraded  than  that  of  the  Nile  land. 
The  courage  and  military  genius  of  the  As- 
syrians were  also  superior  to  the  same  (_|uali- 
ties  in  the  Egyptians,  who  were  on  the  whole 
an  uu warlike  nation.     But  in  the  grandeur 


and  durability  of  her  architecfture  Egypt  sur- 
passed Assyria.  The  Assj-rian  palaces,  with 
all  their  splendor,  were  inferior  to  the  colos- 
sal stru(ftures  of  Thebes.  Neither  Assyria, 
Rome  or  any  other  nation,  has  rivaled 
Egypt  in  the  vastness  and  the  solemn  grand- 
eur of  its  edifices.  But  with  this  solitary 
exception,  the  great  kingdom  of  Africa  was 
decidedly  the  inferior  of  her  powerful  Asia- 
tic rival,  which  was  truly  described  by  the 
Hebrew  prophet  Ezekiel  as  "a  cedar  in  Leb- 
anon, exalted  above  all  the  trees  of  the  field 
— fair  in  his  greatness,  in  the  length  of  his 
branches — so  that  all  the  trees  of  Eden,  that 
were  in  the  garden  of  God,  envied  him — and 
not  one  was  like  unto  him  in  his  beauty." 

The  material  and  phy.sical  vigor  of  the 
As-sj^rians  outran  their  intellecflual  pro- 
gress and  development.  The  elements  of 
their  science  and  literature,  their  cuneiform 
writing,  their  architedture  and  other  arts, 
they  brqught  with  them  from  their  mother 
country,  Chaldaea.  Even  the  Hamitic, 
or  Cushite,  dialedt  of  the  Chaldees  became 
the  language  of  the  Assyrian  priests  and 
scholars,  and  in  this  dead  language  were 
preser\'ed  the  records  of  the  old  Chal- 
daean  kingdom  and  the  early  history  of  the 
Assyrian  monarchy.  It  was  not  until  the 
culminating  period  of  Assyrian  greatness 
and  glor\-,  during  the  brilliant  reign  of 
Asshur-bani-pal,  just  before  the  rapid  decaj' 
and  decline  of  Assyrian  power,  that  the 
works  written  in  the  Chaldee  classic  tongue 
were  translated  into  the  Assyrian  vernacular. 
The  Assyrian  race  manifested  its  greatness 
in  art  and  manufacflures,  and  not  in  science 
and  literature. 

As  we  have  before  noticed,  the  same  sys- 
tem of  cuneiform,  or  wedge-.shaped,  charac- 
ters used  in  Chaldisan  writing  was  employed 
in  the  written  language  of  Assyria.  The 
mounds  of  Assyria  and  Mesopotamia  have 
yielded  a  mass  of  documents  in  the  A.ssyr- 
ian  language.  Some  of  these  are  .stone 
slabs  bearing  long  historic  in.scriptions 
with  which  the  walls  of  palaces  were 
paneled,  and  which  are  wonderfully  pre- 
served to-  this  day.  Other  memorials  are 
the    hollow    cylinders,    or,    more    properly, 


civn.rzATiox. 


20 1 


hexagonal  or  octagonal  prisms,  made  of  ex- 
tremely thin  terra-colta,  and  which  the  As- 
syrian kings  inscribed  with  the  records  of 
their  acftions  and  with  many  religious  invo- 
cations,   and   deposited    at    the   corners   of 


c 


^Tii  ^T  ^^  a^  ^  y  »--rf  >£^ 

^^^T 1-  >ni  ^  |^^H  ^1^  ^T^  :=:i^ 


I: 


SLAB   WITH   CUNEIFORM    INSCRIPTION. 
Now  in  British  Museum. 

-13.-U.  H. 


temples.  These  cylinders  are  from  a  half 
yard  to  a  yard  high,  and  the  inscriptions 
covering  the  outside  face  are  arranged  in 
columns,  one  of  which  occupies  each  side, 
reading  from  top  to  bottom.     This  writing 

— . was  so  wonderfully  fine 

as  to  often  require  a 
good  niagnifying-glass 
to  decipher  it.  The  cyl- 
inder of  Tiglath-Pileser 
I.  contains  thirty  lines 
in  a  space  of  six  inches, 
or  five  lines  to  an  inch, 
which  is  almost  as  close 
as  the  type  of  this  book. 
The  cylinder  of  Asshur- 
bani-pal  has  six  lines  to 
the  inch.  The  durabili- 
ty of  these  cylinders  is 
attested  by  the  fact  that 
many  of  them  still  re- 
main, and  give  us  most 
of  our  knowledge  of  the 
annals  of  this  great  peo- 
ple, as  recorded  by  them- 
selves twentj'-five  and 
thirt}'  centuries  ago. 

Besides  slabs  and  cj-1- 
inders,  the  written  rec- 
ords of  AssjTia  were  in- 
scribed upon  the  stone 
bulls  and  lions,  stone 
obelisks,  engraved  seals, 
bricks  and  clay  tablets. 
Both  the  sun-dried  and 
kiln-burned  bricks  are 
stamped  with  legends, 
to  preser\-e  them  from 
the  two  great  dangers 
of  flood  and  fire,  to 
which  Assyria  was  sub- 
ject:. Fire  would  only 
harden  the  sun-dried 
bricks,  and  water  could 
not  affedl  those  burned 
in  kilns.  The  clay  tab- 
lets are  numerous,  and 
of  sizes  varying  from 
nine  by  six  and  a  half 
inches,  to  an  inch  and  a 


202 


ANCIEXT  HISrORY.— ASSYRIA. 


half  by  an  inch.  In  some  cases  they  are 
wholly  co\-ered  with  writing,  while  in  other 
instances  a  portion  of  their  surface  is 
stamped  with  seals,  mythological  emblems, 
etc.  Thousands  of  these  talilets  have  been 
found,  many  being  historical,  many  mytho- 
logical, some  linguistic,  .some  geographic, 
some  astronomical.  Such  are  the  treasures 
of  Assyrian  literature. 

The  few  stone  obelisks  are  in  a  fragmen- 
tary condition,  the  only  perfe<?t  one  being 
the  one  in  black  basalt,  discovered  by  Mr. 
Lavard  at  Nimrud,  and  which  has  now  been 


ten  clearly  cut  lines.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
important  of  the  remaining  Assyrian  me- 
morials, and  contains  a  record  of  the  vidlories 
won  and  the  tribute  brought  to  Shalmaneser 
II.,  who  set  it  up. 

The  many  inscribed  lions  and  bulls  guard- 
ing the  portals  of  palaces  are  raised  in  a 
bold  relief  on  alabaster  slabs;  the  inscrip- 
tions generally  covering  only  the  portion.^ 
of  the  slabs  not  occupied  by  the  animal,  and 
usualh'  giving  a  detailed  account  of  some 
important  campaign.  Clay  tablets  were 
used  in  ordinary  business  affairs,  and  for  lit- 


KXHUMl.NG   A    WINGKD    M.\N 

for  many  years  in  the  British  Museum.  This 
moiuiment  is  about  .seven  feet  high,  two  feet 
broad  at  the  base,  tapering  slightly  towards 
the  top,  which  is  crowned  with  three  low 
steps,  or  gradines.  The  in.scriiition  occupies 
the  upjKT  and  lower  portions  of  each  side, 
and  is  carried  along  the  spaces  between  the 
bas-reliefs,  consisting  of  two  hundred   and 


HE.\Di;i)    lll'LL    yt    NIMRUD. 

erary  and  .scientific  writings;  and,  when 
wanted  for  instrudlion  or  evidence,  were 
carefully  baked.  That  thej'  exi.st  to  this 
da3^,  in  as  legible  a  condition,  with  letters 
as  clear  and  .sharp,  as  any  Greek  or  Roman 
legend  on  .stone,  marble  or  metal,  proves 
that  the  best  clay,  properly  baked,  is  as 
durable  as  stone  or  metal. 


Cn'II.JZATIOX. 


203 


Says  Professor  Rawlinson:  "Of  all  the 
Assyrian  works  of  art  which  have  come 
down  to  us,  by  far  the  most  important  are 
the  bas-reliefs.  It  is  here  especially,  if  not 
solely,  that  we  can  trace  progress  in  style; 
and  it  is  here  alone  that  we  see  the  real  ar- 
tistic genius  of  the  people.  What  sculpture 
in  its  full  form,  or  in  the  slightly  modified 
form  of  ver>-  high  relief,  was  to  the  Greeks, 
what  painting  has  been  to  modern  European 
nations  since  the  time  of  Ciniabue,  that  low 
relief  was  to  the  Assyrians — the  practical 
mode  in  which  artistic  power  found  vent 
among  them.  They  used  it  for  almost  everj' 
pui-pose  to  which  mimetic  art  is  applicable  ; 
to  express  their  religious  feelings  and  ideas, 
to  glorifj-  their  kings,  to  hand  down  to  pos- 
teritj'  the  nation's  historj'  and  its  deeds  of 
prowess,  to  depicft  home  scenes  and  domestic 
occupations,  to  represent  landscape  and  arch- 
itecture, to  imitate  animal  and  vegetable 
forms,  even  to  illustrate  the  mechanical 
methods  which  the\-  employed  in  the  con- 
stru(ftion  of  those  vast  architedtural  works 
of  which  the  reliefs  were  the  principal  orna- 
mentation. It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
we  know  the  Assyrians,  not  merely  artisti- 
cally, but  historicalh-  and  ethnologically, 
chiefly  through  their  bas-reliefs,  which  seem 
to  represent  to  us  almost  the  entire  life  of 
the  people." 

The  bas-reliefs  were  sculptured  on  stone 
slabs,  which  were  set  in  the  lower  part  of 
the  walls  of  the  palaces  which  they  adorned. 
These  reliefs  were  of  five  different  classes — 
I.  War  scenes,  such  as  battles,  sieges,  devas- 
tations of  an  enemy's  country,  naval  expedi- 
tions and  triumphant  returns  from  foreign 
wars,  with  the  trophies  and  fruits  of  vic- 
torj'i  2.  Religious  scenes,  mythical  and  real; 
3.  Processions,  mosth'  of  tribute-bearers, 
carrying  the  products  of  their  respecftive 
countries  to  the  Assyrian  king;  4.  Hunting 
and  sporting  scenes,  such  as  the  cha.se  of  fe- 
rocious animals,  and  of  animals  hunted  for 
food,  the  spreading  of  nets,  the  shooting  of 
birds,  etc.;  5.  Scenes  of  even,-day  life,  such 
as  the  transportation  and  erection  of  colos- 
sal bulls,  and  landscapes,  temples,  interiors, 
gardens,  etc. 


Assyrian  mimetic  art  is  in  the  form  of 
statues,  bas-reliefs,  metal  castings,  ivory 
car\-ings,  clay  statuettes,  brick  enamelings, 
and  intaglios  on  stones  and  gems.  Assyrian 
statues  are  rare  and  imperfedt.  The  best 
specimens  are  two  royal  statues  now  in  the 
British  Museum;  also  two  statues  of  the  god 
Nebo,  one  of  the  goddess  Ishtar,  and  one  of 
Sargon — all  of  \\hich  are  now  also  in  the 
British  Museum.  The  A.s.s^-rian  claj-  stat- 
uettes, mostU'  images  of  deities,  possess  even 
less  artistic  excellence  than  the  statues. 
Small  animal  figures,  mostly  dogs  and 
ducks,  in  terra-cotta,  have  likewi.se  been 
di.scovered. 

In  painting,  as  well  as  in  sculpture,  the 
Assyrians  made  great  progress,  and  many 
of  the  drawings  on  the  prominent  sculptures 
are  elegant.  Even,thing  indicates  a  taste 
for  display.  In  architeiftural  designs,  and 
in  the  grouping  of  flowers  and  animals  for 
the  purpo.ses  of  embellishment,  great  rich- 
ness and  variety  of  fancy  are  exhibited. 
The  dresses  of  the  kings  display  gorgeous 
robes,  elegantly'  and  profusely  embroidered, 
fringed  and  tasseled.  Sandals  made  of 
wood  or  leather  were  u.sed  for  the  feet,  while 
caps  and  tiaras  of  silk  were  worn  on  the 
head.  Many  articles  of  furniture  likewise 
displayed  great  elegance .  Tables  constructed 
of  wood  or  metal,  inlaid  with  ivorj'  and 
having  legs  gracefully-  canned,  were  in  the 
dwellings  of  the  wealthy.  Elegant  baskets 
seem  to  have  been  in  use.  Ornaments,  such 
as  tassels,  fringes,  necklaces,  armlets,  brace- 
lets, anklets,  ear-rings  of  various  forms  and 
elegant  workmanship,  clasps,  etc.,  were  worn 
in  profusion.  There  were  drinking-cups  of 
gold  and  sih-er.  E\'er>-where  was  manifested 
a  love  of  elaborate  and  gaudy  decoration. 

The  excavations  within  the  last  half  cen- 
tury at  Khonsabad,  Koyunjik,  Nimrud  and 
Kileh-Sherghat  have  revealed  to  us  the  fadl 
that  truly  did  Assyria  rank  next  to  Egypt 
in  monumental  grandeur.  The  remains  of 
A.ssyrian  art  and  architecture  exhumed  from 
these  mounds  give  a  very  considerable 
knowledge  of  their  stupendous  palaces  in 
the  days  of  their  splendor  and  glor\-.  We 
can,  by  looking  at  the  remains  of  the  .sculp- 


204 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— ASS YRIA. 


tared  and  painted  walls  of  their  vast  edifices, 
read  the  records  of  Assyria — its  battles,  its 
sieges,  its  conquests  and  its  triumphs.  We 
see  around  the  colossal  images  of  the  As- 
sj-rian  gods,  by  which,  in  monstrous  yet 
striking  emblems,  the  Assyrians  endeavored 
to  express  their  conceptions  of  divinity.  We 
are  here  introduced  to  the  semblances  of 
monarchs  who  flourished  from  twenty-five 
to  thirty  centuries  ago.  We  .see  these  in 
their  costumes  of  state,  in  all  the  pomp  and 
circumstance  of  war,  in  the  pursuit  of  the 
chase,  and  in  the  solemn  ceremonials  of  re- 
ligion. We  are  also  enabled  from  these 
sculptures  to  inform  ourselves  "of  many  of 
the  domestic  customs  of  the  Assyrians,  of 
their  household  furniture,  their  mechanical 
tools  and  implements,  their  methods  of  agri- 
culture, the  crops  of  the  husbandman,  and 
in  facft,  the  occupations  and  amusements  of 
this  renowned  Asiatic  people  in  the  days  of 
their  preeminence. 

lyayard  and  Botta,  the  fortunate  discov- 
erers of  the.se  famous  ruins,  ha\-e  given  us 
glowing  descriptions  of  the  ma.s.sive  dimen- 
.sions,  the  magnificence  and  grandeur,  of  the 
Assyrian  palaces,  whose  ruins  they  uncov- 
ered from  the  Khorsabad,  Koyunjik  and 
Nimrud  mounds.  The  stranger  who  visited 
these  splendid  palaces  in  the  flourishing  pe- 
riods of  the  Assyrian  Kmpire  was  ushered 
in  through  the  portal,  guarded  by  colossal 
winged  man-headed  lions  and  bulls  of  white 
alabaster.  In  the  first  hall  he  saw  all 
around  him  the  sculptured  records  of  the 
empire — battles,  sieges,  triumphs,  hunting 
exploits,  religious  ceremonies — all  portrayed 
on  the  palace  walls,  sculptured  in  alabaster, 
and  painted  in  gorgeous  colors.  Under  each 
picture  he  saw  engraved,  in  characflers  filled 
up  with  bright  copper,  in.scriptions  descrip- 
tive of  the  .scenes  thus  illustrated. 

Above  the  sculptures  he  ob,ser\'ed  paint- 
ings representing  other  events — the  As.sj-rian 
king,  attended  by  his  eunuchs  and  his  war- 
riors, receiving  his  captives,  negotiating 
alliances  with  other  monarchs,  or  perform- 
ing some  sacred  duty;  these  representations 
being  surrounded  by  colored  Ijorders,  of 
elaborate  and  elegant  designs.     He  saw  the 


emljlematic  tree,  also  winged  man-headed 
bulls  and  lions,  occupN-ing  conspicuous  places 
among  the  ornaments.  At  the  upper  end  of 
the  hall  was  a  gigantic  figure  of  the  king, 
in  adoration  before  Asshur,  ' '  the  Great 
IvOrd,"  or  receiving  from  his  eunuch  the 
holy  cup.  He  was  attended  by  warriors 
bearing  his  arms,  and  by  the  priests,  or  pre- 
siding divinities.  His  robes  and  those  of 
his  followers  were  adorned  with  groups  of 
figures,  animals  and  flowers,  all  painted  with 
brilliant  colors. 

The  visitor  trod  upon  alabaster  slabs,  each 
bearing  an  inscription,  recording  the  titles, 
the  genealogy  and  the  achievements  of  the 
Great  King.  Several  doorways,  guarded  by 
gigantic  winged  man-headed  lions  and  bulls, 
or  by  the  figures  of  guardian  deities,  led 
into  other  apartments,  which  likewise  opened 
into  more  remote  halls.  In  each  of  these 
apartments  and  halls  were  sculptures.  On 
the  walls  of  some  were  processions  of  colos- 
sal figures — armed  men  and  eunuchs  follow- 
ing the  king,  or  warriors  laden  w-ith  spoil, 
conducfting  captives  or  bearing  presents  and 
offerings  to  the  gods.  On  the  walls  of  others 
!  were  portrayed  the  winged  priests,  or  pre- 
.siding  divinities,  standing  before  the  sacred 
trees. 

The  ceilings  abo\-e  the  visitor  were  divided 
into  square  compartments,  painted  with 
flowers  or  wdtli  figures  of  animals.  Some 
were  inlaid  with  ivor}-,  each  compartment 
being  surrounded  with  elegant  liorders  and 
mouldings.  The  beams,  as  well  as  the  sides 
of  the  chambers,  may  have  been  gilded,  or 
even  plated  with  gold  and  silver;  and  the 
most  highly  prized  species  of  wood,  promi- 
nent among  which  was  the  cedar,  were  used 
in  the  wood-work.  The  palaces  were  lighted 
from  the  roofs,  which  were  of  wood,  the 
light  being  admitted  through  square  open- 
ings into  the  ceilings  of  the  chambers.  A 
pleasing  light  was  thus  cast  over  the  sculp- 
tured walls,  and  gave  a  majestic  expression 
to  the  human  features  of  the  colossal  figures 
guarding  the  entrances.  The  azure  hue  of 
the  eastern  sky  was  seen  through  these 
apertures,  which  were  enclosed  in  frames, 
whereon  were  painted  in  vivid  colors  the 


CIMI.IZATION. 


205 


winged  circle,  in  the  midst  of  elegant  orna- 
ments and  the  graceful  figures  of  ideal 
animals. 

These  vast  edifices  were  the  great  Assyr- 
ian monuments,  upon  whose  walls  were 
represented  in  sculpture,  or  inscribed  in 
cuneiform  characflers,  the  chronicles  of  the 
Assyrian  Empire.  The  \-isitor  who  en- 
tered these  splendid  stru(5tures  might  here 
read  the  annals  and  learn  all  about  the 
glorj-  and  triumphs  of  this  great  people. 
These  memorials  ser\'ed  also  to  constantly 
remind  those  who  assembled  within  the 
palace  on  festive  occasions,  or  for  cele- 
brating religious  ceremonies,  of  the  deeds 
and  prowess  of  their  ancestors,  and  the 
power  and  majesty  of  the  Assyrian  gods. 
The  palaces  seem  to  have  been  of  one  story, 
but  of  vast  extent.  Under  the  floor  of  each 
room  was  a  drain,  consisting  of  a  clay  pipe. 
No  traces  of  the  dwellings  of  the  common 
people  remain.  The  sculptures  inform  us 
that  the  Assyrians  used  the  arch  in  building. 
Assyrian  pillars  in  the  temples  and  palaces 
rested  on  circular  or  globular  bases,  or  on 
animal  figures.  The  temple  towers,  or  zig- 
gurats,  were  eredted  in  the  form  of  steps  or 
stages  around  their  four  sides,  thus  gradu- 
ally becoming  narrower  at  the  top.  Such 
were  the  royal  residences  of  Assyria — each 
of  which  was  at  the  same  time  a  temple  and 
a  palace — the  dwelling  of  him  who  was  at 
once  the  sovereign,  the  priest  and  the  prophet 
of  his  people. 

The  Assyrian  ruins  exhibit  no  tombs  like 
those  of  Egypt,  whose  painted  interiors, 
protedled  from  the  ravages  of  the  elements, 
have  transmitted  to  succeeding  ages  the 
thoughts,  feelings  and  opinions  of  their 
ancient  builders.  All  that  remains  of  As- 
.syrian  architecture  are  .scattered  bricks,  usu- 
ally marked  with  inscriptions  and  with 
sculptures  and  reliefs.  The  most  interesting 
and  valuable  are  the  stone  slabs  facing  the 
inside  walls  of  the  temples.  The  Assyrian 
strudlures  were  generally  built  of  brick, 
which  was  preferred  as  a  building  material, 
although  stone  was  abundant  in  the  country-. 
The  temples  constructed  of  .stone  have  partly 
remained,  though  buried  in  heaps  of  rubbish 


for  twenty-five  centuries.  Marble,  alabaster 
and  basalt  were  u.sed  in  the  palaces.  The 
ancient  Ass>-rian  edifices,  like  the  palaces, 
had  no  windows,  but  were  lighted  through 
their  wooden  roofs. 

So  thoroughly  was  Nineveh  destroj'ed  that 
when  Xenophon,  about  two  hundred  and 
twentj'-five  years  afterward,  passed  over  its 
ruins  the  verj'  name  of  the  place  was  un- 
known to  the  inhabitants;  and  in  the  time 
of  Alexander  the  Great,  nearly  a  century 
later,  the  city  was  forgotten;  so  that  for  over 
two  thousand  years  the  ver\'  site  of  the  re- 
nowned capital  and  metropolis  of  Assyria 
was  unknown.  But  the  wonderful  discov- 
eries of  Layard  in  recent  times  have  identi- 
fied its  localitj'  as  the  ruins  opposite  the 
present  town  of  Mosul,  on  the  Tigris,  con- 
.sisting  of  two  principal  mounds,  known  re- 
specftively  by  their  present  Arab  names  of 
Nebbi-Yunus  and  Ko^-unjik.  The  Koyun- 
jik  mound  is  the  larger  of  the  two,  and  is 
located  about  nine  hundred  yards,  or  a  little 
over  half  a  mile,  north-we.st  of  the  Nebbi- 
Yunus.  Its  .shape  is  an  irregular  oval,  elon- 
gated to  a  point  towards  the  north-east,  in 
the  line  of  its  greater  axis.  The  surface  is 
almost  flat,  and  the  sides  slope  at  a  .steep 
angle,  being  furrowed  with  many  ravines, 
worn  in  the  .soft  material  by  the  rains  of 
twenty-five  centuries.  The  mound  rises  to 
its  greatest  height  above  the  plain  towards 
the  south-eastern  extremity,  there  overhang- 
ing the  small  stream  of  the  Khosr-su,  where 
the  height  is  about  ninety-five  feet.  The 
mound  covers  about  a  hundred  acres.  On 
this  artificial  mound  the  Assyrian  palaces 
and  temples,  now  buried  beneath  heaps  of 
earth  and  rubbish,  were  eredled  in  ancient 
times. 

The  Nebbi-Yunus  mound  is  almost  tri- 
angular at  its  base  and  covers  about  forty 
acres.  It  is  more  elevated,  and  its  sides  are 
more  precipitous  than  Koyunjik,  particularly 
on  the  west,  where  it  abutted  upon  the  wall 
of  the  city.  The  surface  is  mostly  flat,  but 
is  di\-ided  into  an  eastern  and  a  western  por- 
tion by  a  deep  ravine  running  nearly  from 
north  to  south.  The  supposed  tomb  of 
Jonah  occupies  a  conspicuous  place  on  the 


2o6 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.  — ASSYRIA. 


CIMUZATION. 


207 


northern  edge  of  the  western  portion  of  tlie 
mound,  and  the  cottages  of  Kurds  and  Turko- 
mans are  grouped  about  it.  The  eastern 
portion  forms  a  general  Mohammedan  burial- 
ground  for  the  surrounding  country. 

Palaces  and  temples  were  raised  on  these 
two  great  mounds,  both  of  which  are  in  the 
same  line  and  abutted  on  the  western  wall 
of  the  city.  On  this  side  Nineveh  was  thir- 
teen thousand  six  hundred  feet,  or  over  two 
and  a  half  miles  long,  and  in  ancient  times 
overhung  the  Tigris,  which  is  now  a  mile 
farther  to  the  west,  leaving  a  plain  of  that 


impends  over  a  deep  ravine  formed  by  a 
winter  torrent,  thus  running  in  a  dire<5l  line 
about  a  thousand  yards,  when  it  is  joined 
with  the  eastern  wall,  with  which  it  forms 
a  slightly  acute  angle. 

The  eastern  wall  is  the  longest  and  the 
most  irregular  of  the  four  ramparts,  and 
skirts  the  edge  of  a  rocky  ridge,  there  ri.sing 
above  the  level  of  the  plain  and  presenting 
a  slightly  convex  course  to  the  north-east. 
This  wall  is  sixteen  thousand  feet,  or  over 
three  miles  long,  and  is  divided  a  little  north 
of  the    middle    into    tw-o   portions,    by    the 


THE   GREAT   MOUND   OF    KOVUNJIK,    ON    THE   SITE   OF   NINEVEH. 


width  between  the  river  and  the  old  rampart 
of  the  city.  This  rampart  followed  the  nat- 
ural course  of  the  river  bank.  At  its 
northern  extremity  the  western  wall  ap- 
proaches the  present  course  of  the  Tigris, 
and  is  there  connecfted,  at  exactly  right 
angles,  with  the  northern  or  north-western 
rampart,  which  runs  in  a  diredl  line  to  the 
north-eastern  angle  of  the  city  and  measures 
exactly  seven  thousand  feet.  At  one  third 
of  the  distance  from  the  north-west  angle 
this  wall  is  broken  by  a  road,  and  adjoining 
this  is  a  remarkable  mound,  which  covers 
one  of  the  principal  gates  of  the  city.  At 
its  other  eiid  the  western  wall  forms  an 
obtuse  angle  with  the  southern  wall,  which 


Khosr-su,  which  flows  through  the  cit)' 
ruins,  running  across  the  low  plains  to  the 
Tigris. 

Thus  the  entire  enceinte  of  Nineveh  forms 
an  irregular  trapezium.  Its  greatest  width, 
which  is  in  its  northern  portion,  is  four- 
ninths  of  its  length,  thus  giving  the  city  an 
oblong  shape,  as  Diodorus  described  it, 
though  he  greatly  exaggerated  its  size.  The 
circuit  of  the  walls  is  not  quite  eight  miles, 
instead  of  being  over  fifty;  and  the  area  thus 
embraced  is  eighteen  hundred  English  acres, 
and  not  one  hundred  and  twelve  thousand. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  populous  Ori- 
ental cities  have  a  hundred  inhabitants  to 
the  acre,  or  one  to  fifty  square  yards,  thus 


20S 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  J '. — ASS )  'RIA. 


!i!|i)il«!|i|i!iii!i|Ni!||iiiiffli|ji)ii'i)'iii|imi!;|i;ii;i|i|lipi 

'ii ,  „     :.'■:     i  !       1  Ti*.  V       ■'.:  ;..  \:   ■' 


liili!       I   I 


.iMiji 


Ii    ii  I   Ii 


■.;mt 


!!l;!ll!i!i!iii|l!l^ito:».' 


i;!lliiiliiiHi!;i:'!i' 


1    ,|  pl;i,i;,l:!';,1l,K,i,l'.|:il,l:.!:i, 


m 

IL 


CIl'ILIZATION. 


209 


giving  ancient  Nineveh  one  luindred  and 
seventy-five  thousand  souls,  a  population 
exceeding  that  of  any  city  of  Western  Asia 
at  the  present  time. 

Diodorus  described  the  wall  with  which 
Ninus  surrounded  his  capital  as  being  one 
hundred  feet  high,  and  so  wide  that  three 
chariots  could  be  driven  abreast  along  the  top. 
Xenophon,  who  passed  near  the  ruins  while 
conducfliug  the  Retreat  of  the  Ten  Thou- 
sand, says  that  the  walls  were  one  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  high  and  fifty  feet  broad.  The 
greatest  height  at  present  appears  to  be 
forty-six  feet;  but  the  great  amount  of  rub- 
bish at  the  foot  of  the  walls,  and  their  ruined 
condition,  have  led  Mr.  Layardtosay:  "The 
remains  still  existing  of  these  fortifications 
almost  confirm  the  statement  of  Diodorus 
Siculus,  that  the  walls  were  a  hundred  feet 
high."  The  walls  in  their  present  condition 
are  from  one  hundred  to  two  hundred  feet 
broad. 

Xenophon  says  that  the  walls  up  to  fifty 
feet  were  construAed  of  a  fossiliferous  lime- 
stone, smoothed  and  polished  on  the  outside, 
and  that  above  that  height  sun-dried  bricks 
were  used.  The  stone  masonrj-,  in  Mr.  Lay- 
ard's  opinion,  was  ornamented  along  its  top 
by  a  continuous  series  of  battlements,  or 
gradines,  of  the  .same  material,  and  it  is 
probable  that  a  like  ornamentation  crowned 
the  upper  brick  structure.  The  wall  was 
pierced  at  irregular  intervals  by  gates,  above 
which  rose  high  towers;  and  lower  towers 
occurred  in  the  parts  of  the  wall  between 
the  different  gates.  A  gate  in  the  north- 
western rampart,  cleared  by  excavation, 
seems  to  have  consisted  of  three  gateways, 
the  inner  and  outer  being  ornamented  with 
colossal  winged  man-headed  bulls  and  other 
figures,  while  the  middle  one  was  only  pan- 
eled with  alabaster  slabs.  Between  the  gate- 
ways were  two  large  chambers,  seventy  feet 
long  by  twenty-three  feet  wide,  being  thus 
capable  of  holding  a  considerable  body  of 
soldiers.  The  chambers  and  gateways  are 
believed  to  have  been  arched  over,  similar 
to  the  castles'  gates  on  the  bas-reliefs.  The 
gates  themselves  have  entirely  ceased  to  ex- 
ist, but  the  rubbish  which  filled  both    the 


chambers  and  the  passages  contained  so 
nuich  charcoal  as  to  give  rise  to  the  belief 
that  they  were  constructed  of  bronze.  The 
ground  within  the  gateway  was  paved  with 
large  limestone  slabs,  which  still  bear  the 
marks  of  chariot-wheels. 

Besides  its  ramparts,  Nineveh  was  pro- 
tected on  all  sides  by  water  barriers,  the 
west  and  south  being  defended  by  natural 
streams,  and  the  north  and  east  by  artificial 
canals  beginning  at  the  Khosr-su.  vSkirting 
the  northern  and  eastern  walls  was  a  deep 
moat,  into  which  the  waters  of  the  Khosr-su 
were  turned  by  occupjiug  its  natural  channel 
with  a  strong  dam,  carried  across  it  in  the 
line  of  the  eastern  wall,  and  at  the  point 
where  the  stream  uow  flows  into  the  en- 
closure. On  coming  in  contadt  with  this 
obstrucftion,  of  which  some  vestiges  j-et  re- 
main, the  waters  separated  into  two  parts, 
one  flowing  to  the  south-east  into  the  Tigris 
by  the  ravine  immediately  to  the  south  of 
the  cit}-,  which  is  a  natural  water-course, 
and  the  other  turning  at  an  acute  angle  to 
the  north-west,  washing  the  remainder  of 
the  eastern  and  the  entire  northern  wall, 
and  emptying  into  the  Tigris  at  the  north- 
west angle  of  the  city,  where  a  .second  dam 
kept  it  at  a  sufiicieut  height.  On  the  eastern 
side,  which  seems  to  have  been  the  weakest 
and  the  most  exposed,  a  .series  of  outer  de- 
fenses were  construcfted  for  the  further  pro- 
tection of  the  citJ^  North  of  the  Khosr-su, 
between  the  city  wall  and  that  stream, 
which  there  flows  parallel  to  the  wall  and 
forms  a  second  or  outer  moat,  are  the  re- 
mains of  a  detached  fort  which,  from  its 
size,  evidently  added  considerable  strength 
to  the  city's  defenses  in  that  quarter.  The 
works  are  yet  more  elaljorate  to  the  south 
and  south-east  of  the  Khosr-su.  From  a 
point  where  the  stream  leaves  the  hills  and 
reaches  low  ground,  a  deep  ditch,  two  hun- 
dred feet  wide,  was  extended  lor  two  miles, 
until  it  connected  with  the  ravine  forming 
the  natural  defen.se  of  the  cit>-  on  the  .south. 
On  each  side  of  the  ditch,  which  could  be 
easily  filled  with  water  from  the  Khosr-su 
at  its  northern  c.xtrcmity,  was  erected  a 
high  and  wide  wall;  the  eastern  one  forming 


2IO 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  }  '.—ASS  )  'RIA. 


the  outermost  defense,  and  rising  even  yet  a 
hundred  feet  abo\-e  the  bottom  of  the  ditch 
on  which  it  adjoins.  Between  this  outer 
barrier  and  the  city  moat  was  a  kind  of 
demi-lune,  defended  by  a  double  wall  and  a 
broad  ditch,  and  joined  by  a  covered  way 
with  the  city  itself.  Thus  Nineveh  was 
protected  on  its  most  vulnerable  side,  to- 
wards the  centre,  by  five  walls  and  three 
broad  and  deep  moats ;  towards  the  north  by 
a  wall,  a  moat,  the  Khosr-su  and  a  strong 
outpost;  towards  the  south  bj'  two  moats 
and  three  lines  of  rampart.  The  entire  for- 
tification on  the  eastern  side  is  two  thousand 
two  hundred  feet,  or  nearl)-  a  half  mile  wide. 

The  accounts  of  Ctesias  and  Diodorus  re- 
specting the  immense  size  of  Nineveh  are 
highlj-  exaggerated,  and  it  is  known  that 
these  writers  regarded  the  ruins  of  Nimrud, 
Keremles,  Khorsabad  and  Koyunjik  as  all 
being  the  remains  of  that  renowned  Assyr- 
ian capital.  The  Book  of  Jonah  also  bears 
testimony  to  the  immense  size  of  this  great 
city.  Unlike  Ctesias,  who  onh-  saw  the  ruins 
of  Nineveh,  Jonah  saw  the  city  itself  in  its 
splendor.  This  Hebrew  prophet  tells  us 
that  Nineveh  was  "an  exceeding  great  city, 
of  three  days'  journey,"  and  also  that  in  it 
were  ' '  more  than  sixscore  thousand  persons 
that  could  not  discern  between  their  right 
hand  and  their  left."  Though  these  pas- 
sages are  very  vague,  they  yet  convey  some 
idea  of  the  vastness  of  the  city.  It  has  been 
supposed  that  the  one  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  persons  "that  could  not  discern 
between  their  right  hand  and  their  left ' ' 
were  children,  which  would  thus  indicate  a 
population  of  about  six  hundred  thousand. 
It  has  also  been  believed  that  the  phrase 
".six  score  thousand  persons  that  could  not 
discern  between  their  right  hand  and  their 
left ' '  alluded  to  the  dense  ignorance  of  the 
inhabitants,  in  which  case  the  number  here 
mentioned  included  the  entire  population  of 
the  city. 

The  sculptures  of  the  Assyrians  furnish 
us  with  very  complete  representations  of 
their  system  of  warfare.  The  Assyrians, 
like  other  ancient  nations,  fought  in  char- 
iots, on  horseback  and  on  foot.     Like  the 


Egyptians,  the  early  Greeks,  the  Canaanites, 
the  Syrians,  the  Jews  and  Israelites,  the 
Philistines,  the  Hittites,  the  Lydians,  the 
Elamites,  or  Susianians,  the  Medes  and  Per- 
sians, the  Hindoos,  the  Gauls,  the  Britons, 
and  other  peoples  of  antiquity,  the  Assjt- 
ians  looked  upon  the  chariot  as  most  hon- 
orable. Their  king  invariably  went  to  war 
and  battle  riding  in  a  chariot,  only  dis- 
mounting and  shooting  his  arrows  on  foot 
while  besieging  a  town.  The  leading  officers 
of  state,  and  other  dignitaries  of  high  rank, 
followed  the  same  custom.  The  cavalry  and 
infantrj'  were  composed  of  persons  of  the 
lower  classes. 

The  Jewish  prophet  Isaiah,  in  warning 
his  countrj'men  of  the  miseries  in  store  for 
them,  described  the  Assyrians  as  a  people 
"whose  arrows  were  sharp,  and  all  their 
bows  bent,  whose  horses'  hoofs  should  be 
counted  like  flint,  and  their  -a'hcels  like  a 
whirlwind."  The  same  prophet,  in  after- 
wards announcing  Jehovah's  displeasure 
with  Sennacherib  on  account  of  his  pride, 
speaks  of  tbat  king's  reliance  upon  "the 
multitude  of  his  chariots."  The  prophet 
Nahum,  in  announcing  the  coming  over- 
throw of  the  haughty  nation,  declares  that 
Jehovah  is  ' '  against  her,  and  will  bum  her 
chariots  in  the  smoke."  In  the  fabulous 
Assyrian  history  by  Ctesias  the  war-chariots 
of  the  mythical  king  Ninus  are  represented 
as  amounting  to  nearly  eleven  thousand, 
and  those  of  his  wife  and  successor,  Semira- 
mis,  are  estimated  at  the  extravagant  num- 
ber of  one  hundred  thousand. 

The  Assyrian  war-chariot  is  believed  to 
have  been  made  of  wood.  Like  that  of  the 
Greeks  and  Egyptians,  it  seems  to  have  been 
mounted  from  behind,  being  there  complete- 
ly open,  or  only  closed  hy  means  of  a  shield, 
which  could  be  hung  across  the  aperture. 
It  was  richly  ornamented,  and  completely 
paneled  at  the  sides.  The,  two  wheels  were 
placed  at  the  extreme  hind  end  of  the 
body,  as  in  the  Egj-ptian  war-chariot.  The 
chariot- wheels  of  the  early  period  had  six 
spokes;  those  of  the  middle  and  later  periods 
had  eight.  The  felloes  of  the  wheels  usual- 
ly  consisted   of  three  distinct   circles,    the 


o 

w 


> 
z 


'T. 

w 
o 

-1- 


0", 

< 


cnn.izATioN. 


211 


middle  one  being  the  thinnest,  and  the  outer 
one  the  tliickcst  of  the  three.  vSonictiines 
there  was  a  fourth  circle.  These  circles 
were  fastened  together  with  bands  of  iron. 
The  wheels  were  attached  to  an  axle-tree 
fastened  to  the  body  without  any  springs 
between  them.  They  were  furnished  with 
bows,  quivers  of  arrows,  spears,  or  javelins, 
hatchets,  battle-axes  and  shields. 


ASSYRIAN   WAR-CHARIOT. 

The  chariots  were  drawn  bj-  two  or  three 
horses,  two  being  yoked  together  in  front, 
while  the  third  was  hitched  before  the  others 
by  means  of  a  rope,  and  was  designed  as  a 
suppl}'  in  case  of  loss.  The  harness  and 
trappings  of  the  horses  were  extremelj'  rich 
and  elegant ;  ribbons,  tassels,  fringes  and 
rosettes,  of  gay  colors,  profusely  decorating 
the  head,  neck  and  sides.  The  bits  and 
ornaments  of  the  bridles  were  of  gold  and 
silver.  Embroidered  robes  were  sometimes 
thrown  over  the  backs  of  the  ;hariot-horses. 

The  chariots  contained  two  persons  at 
least,  the  driver,  or  charioteer,  and  the  war- 
rior. Sometimes  they  contained  in  addi- 
tion an  attendant  who  protecfled  the  warrior 
with  a  .shield  while  he  discharged  his  arrows 
at  the  foe.  In  rare  instances  there  was  a  sec- 
ond attendant  with  a  shield  to  prote(5l 
the  archer  from  behind,  thus  making  four 


persons  occupying  the  chariot.  The  lx)w 
was  the  usual  weapon  of  the  chariot  warrior, 
as  well  as  of  the  cavalrj'  and  infantry  sol- 
diers. The  chariot  warrior  was  sometimes 
dressed  in  a  long  tunic  confined  at  the  waist 
by  a  girdle,  and  sometimes  in  a  coat  of  mail, 
like  the  Egj'ptian  chariot  warrior.  Some- 
times he  descended  from  the  chariot  to  shoot 
off  his  arrows  on  foot. 

The  A.ssyrian  cavalry 
rank  in  importance  almost 
equally  with  the  war-char- 
iots. Ctesias  made  the 
number  of  hor.semen  in 
Assj-rian  armies  alwaj-s 
greater  than  the  chariots. 
The  writer  of  the  Apoch- 
ryphal  Book  of  Judith  as- 
signs Holofernes  twelve 
thousand  hor.se-archers, 
and  the  prophet  Ezekiel 
alludes  apparentl}-  to  all 
the  "desirable  5-oung  men" 
as  "horsemen  riding  upon 
horses."  The  Assyrian 
sculptures  represent  the 
cavalry  as  far  exceeding  in 
number  the  chariots.  In 
the  early  period  of  Ass>-r- 
ian  history-  cavalry-  was 
but  little  used,  but  in  the  times  of  Sargon 
and  Sennacherib  the  cavalry  came  to  be 
prominent  in  all  battle  scenes,  the  chariot 
being  only  used  by  the  king  and  high 
dignitaries. 

The  Assyrian  cavalrj'  were  divided,  ac- 
cording to  their  weapons,  into  mounted  arch- 
ers, or  bowmen,  and  mounted  speannen.  In 
the  early  period  each  cavalrj'  archer  was  ac- 
companied by  an  unarmed  attendant,  who 
managed  his  steed,  while  the  archer  dis- 
charged his  arrows. 

Assyrian  armies,  like  others,  consisted 
mainly  of  iufantrj-.  Ctesias  gives  Ninus 
1,700,000  footmen,  210,000  horsemen  and 
10,600  chariots.  Xenophon  showed  the  wide 
contrast  between  the  immense  host  of  infan- 
trj'  and  the  scanty  numbers  of  the  cavaljy 
and  the  chariots.  Herodotus  says  that  the  As- 
syrians in  the  great  army  of  Xerxes  were  all 


212 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y.—A  SS  }  'RIA. 


footmen.  The  Book  of  Judith  assigns  to 
Holofemes  ten  times  as  many  footmen  as 
horsemen.  The  Assyrian  monuments  show 
the  same  proportion  of  infantrj-  to  cavalrv', 
and  represent  a  hundred  footmen  to  each 
chariot  soldier.  For  their  military  successes 
the  Assyrians  were  chiefly  indebted   to  the 


with  their  axes.  In  Sargon's  time  the  foot 
soldiers  consisted  of  those  of  the  light  equip- 
ment, those  of  the  intermediate  equipment, 
and  those  of  the  heavy  equipment.  Senna- 
cherib's foot  archers  embraced  four  classes, 
two  heavy-anned  and  two  light-armed. 
The  offensive  weapons  were  the  bow  and 


BATTI.E  PIECE  ; 

valor,  discipline,  .solidity  and  equipment  of 
their  infantry,  which  consi.sted  mainly  of 
foot  archers,  or  t)owmen,  and  foot  spearmen. 
Besides  these  the  foot  soldiers  embraced 
swordsmen,  mace-bearers,  ax-bearers,  and 
from  .Sennacherib's  time,  .slingers.  Pioneers 
accompanied  the  army  to  clear  away  trees 


I'ROM    NINKVISH. 

'  arrow,  the  spear,  pike,  or  javelin,  the  sword, 
the  mace,  the  battle-ax  and  the  .sling. 
The  defensive  armor  consisted  of  a  shield 
of  metal  or  wicker-work ;  a  crested  or  pointed 
helmet  of  metal;  and  a  coat  of  mail,  con- 
si.sting  of  successive  rows  of  iron  scales  in 
the  early  period  and  reaching  to  the  feet  or 


CIMI.IZATION. 


2'3 


knees,  and  in  later  times  composed  of  larger 
metal  plates  and  bauds  fastened  together 
and  reaching  only  as  low  as  the  waist. 

The  warriors  were  variously  costumed, 
those  of  the  lighter  equipment  onlj-  wearing 
a  short  tunic  reaching  from  the  waist  to 
half-way  down  the  thigh,  the  rest  of  the  per- 
son being  bare  ;  those  of  the  intermediate 
equipment  wearing  a  coat  of  mail  to  the 
waist  and  a  tunic  thence  to  half-way  down 
the  thigh;  and  those  of  the  heavy  equipment 
wearing  a  coat  of  mail  above  the  waist,  and  a 
robe  thence  down  to  the  feet.  Both  these  lat- 
ter classes  wore  helmets  over  the  head,  and 
sandals  on  the  feet.  The  anns  were  bare. 
When  not  covered  by  the  robe  the  legs  were 
also  sometimes  bare,  and  sometimes  covered 
by  close-fitting  trousers  and  short  greaves, 
or  boots.  The  hilts  of  swords  and  daggers 
were  ornamented  with  gold  chasings  of  ele- 
gant forms,  and  the  points  of  sheaths  with 
the  beaks  of  birds.  The  bow  was  the  chief 
weapon  of  war,  alike  among  chariot,  cav- 
alry and  infantrj'  soldiers,  and  was  richl)^ 
mounted. 

The  barbarous  custom  of  rewarding  those 
who  carried  back  to  camp  the  heads  of  foe- 
men,  caused  the  heads  of  the  dead,  and  even 
of  the  wounded,  the  disarmed  and  the  unre- 
sisting, of  the  enemj-,  to  be  carried  back  to 
camp,  in  proof  of  the  slayer's  prowess.  Quar- 
ter was  generally  only  given  to  generals  and 
dignitaries  of  rank  whom  it  was  desirable  to 
spare.  Scribes  were  always  present  to  take 
an  account  of  the  spoil  at  the  close  of  the 
battle.  The  usual  praAice  upon  taking  a 
city  or  town  was  to  plunder  it  of  ever\'thing 
of  value. 

The  strongly-fortified  towns  of  an  enemy 
were  besieged  and  assailed  iu  three  principal 
ways.  The  attack  bj-  escalade  was  hy 
means  of  ladders  placed  against  the  citj^ 
walls.  These  ladders  were  mounted  by  the 
spearmen,  followed  by  the  archers,  while  the 
bowmen  and  slingers  kept  up  a  constant 
discharge  of  arrows  and  stones.  The  as- 
sailants protecfled  themselves  with  their 
shields.  The  besieged  endeavored  to  dis- 
lodge and  break  the  ladders,  and  defended 
themselves  by  discharging  their  arrows  and 


stones,  or  meeting  their  assailants  .spear  to 
spear  and  .shield  to  shield. 

If  the  escalade  failed,  or  was  impracli- 
cable,  the  battering-ram,  an  engine  mounted 
on  four  or  six  wheels,  and  having  cither  a 
pointed  or  blunt  head,  was  driven  with  force 
agaiust  the  walls  to  effect  a  breach.  In  con- 
nection with  the  battering-ram  a  movable 
tower  containing  .soldiers  was  sometimes 
employed,  the  besiegers  being  thus  enabled 
to  meet  the  besieged  oia  a  level  and  protect 
the  engine  from  attacks.  The  besieged  often 
tried  to  fire  the  battering-ram  by  casting 
upon  it  torches,  burning  tow  or  other  in- 
flammable substances.  To  thwart  these  at- 
tempts the  soldiers  in  the  battering-ram 
were  furnished  with  a  supply  of  water 
which  they  diredled  through  leather  or 
metal  pipes  against  the  combustibles.  Some- 
times they  suspended  a  curtain  of  cloth  or 
leather  from  a  pole  in  front  of  the  battering- 
ram  to  protedl  themselves.  Sometimes  the 
besieged  attempted  to  catch  the  point  of  the 
battering-ram  by  means  of  a  chain  sus- 
pended from  the  walls,  but  the  besiegers  in 
turn  tried  to  catch  the  chain  by  means  of 
strong  metal  hooks.  The  Assyrians  in  their 
sieges  also  used  a  catapult,  a  large  engine 
designed  for  throwing  stones  against  forti- 
fied walls,  the  besiegers  worsting  the  engine 
from  a  mound  or  inclined  plane,  and  the 
besieged  endeavoring  to  destroy  it  b}-  fire. 
The  besiegers  also  endeavored  to  mine  the 
foundations  of  the  walls  by  means  of  crow- 
bars and  pickaxes,  protecling  themselves  by 
holding  their  shields  above  them.  Some- 
times the  besiegers  would  try  to  break  open 
the  gates  with  axes,  or  fire  them  with  tht? 
torch.  WTien  a  cit}-  or  town  was  taken  it 
was  fired,  its  walls  demolished  and  its  trea- 
sures carried  off. 

The  Assyrians  had  three  modes  of  exe- 
cuting captives — impaling  them  on  stakes 
in  the  ground,  beating  in  their  skulls  with 
a  mace,  and  beheading  them.  Several  bas- 
reliefs  represent  them  flaying  prisoners  with 
a  knife.  This  may  have  been  after  death, 
as  was  the  custom  of  the  Persians  and  the 
barbarous  Scythians.  Sometimes  prisoners 
were    punished    by    mutilation    instead  of 


D 


o 

,— ^ 

H 
-< 

a 
ai 

Ci 
■A 
PS 


CIMl.lZATIOX. 


215 


death.  Cutting  off  the  ears,  blinding  the 
eyes  with  hot  irons,  cutting  off  the  nose,  and 
tearing  out  the  tongue  by  the  roots,  have 
always  been  favorite  Asiatic  punishments. 
Asshur-izir-pal  saj^s  in  his  great  inscription 
that  he  frefiuently  cut  off  the  noses  and  ears 
of  captives;  and  a  slab  of  Asshur-bani-pal 
represents  a  captive  in  the  hands  of  torturers, 
one  holditig  the  prisoner's  head,  and  another 
thrusting  his  hand  into  his  mouth  to  tear 
out  the  tongue.  The  captives  consisted  of 
men,  women  and  children.  The  men  were 
driven  in  bands   under  the  condu(5l  of  brutal 


such  as  oxen,  sheep,  goats,  horses,  asses, 
mules  and  camels.  Sennacherib,  in  his  in- 
-scriptions,  says  that  in  one  foray  he  carried 
away  from  the  tribes  on  the  Huphrales 
"7,200  horses  and  mares,  5,230  camels,  11,- 
000 mules,  1 20,000  oxen  and  Stx), 000  sheep." 
Other  Assj-rian  monarchs  mention  the  cap- 
tured animals  as  "too  numerous  to  be 
counted,"  or  "countless  as  the  stars  of 
heaven."  Precious  metals  were  often  among 
the  spoils  carried  off. 

As  in  all  other  Asiatic  monarchies  from 
time  immemorial,  the  severest  form  of  des- 


c.\i'Tivi:,s  ui-'  war;  from  .A.ssiii  r-bani-i'ai.'s  palace. 


officers,  who  hurried  them  on  bj-  blows  to 
the  Assyrian  capital,  where  the  kings  em- 
ployed them  in  labor.  The  .skilled  work- 
men were  required  to  aid  in  ornamenting 
palaces  and  shrines.  The  great  mass  of  the 
unskilled  laborers  were  set  to  work,  under 
brutal  taskmasters,  in  quarrj'ing  and  trans- 
porting stone,  in  raising  mounds,  making 
bricks,  etc.  Sometimes  the  captives  were 
only  colonized  in  new  regions,  to  prevent 
rebellion  in  their  own  native  lands,  and  to 
keep  down  malcontents  in  their  new  abodes. 
Besides  captives,  the  Assyrians  carried 
off  great  numbers  of  domesticated  animals. 


potism  existed  in  Assj-ria.  The  .sovereign's 
will  was  law,  and  no  code  was  in  existence 
to  restrict  his  judgments,  even  the  ancient 
customs  and  usages  being  set  a.side  at  his 
pleasure.  The  king  was  the  head  of  the 
church,  as  well  as  of  the  state,  and  claimed 
divine  worship.  His  palace  was  filled  with 
as  many  wives  and  concubines  as  he  chose 
to  colledt,  and  these  were  placed  under  the 
guardianship  of  eunuchs,  an  unfortunate 
class,  first  brought  into  use  in  Assyria. 
The  portion  of  the  royal  palace  assigned  to 
the  king's  w'omen  was  his  harem,  or  seraglio. 
A  rigid  etiquette  separated  the  king  from 


2l6 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


his  subjedls,  no  one  being  allowed  access  to 
him  except  through  the  proper  court  ofhcials, 
who  always  accompanied  him.  No  one  but 
the  vizier  and  the  chief  eunuch  were  per- 
mitted to  begin  conversation  with  the  king, 
who  was  seated  on  his  throne  when  he  re- 
ceived them,  they  standing  before  him.  As 
a  rule,  the  Assyrian  kings  led  hardy  and  ac- 
tive lives.      In  times  of  peace  they  superiu- 


ASSYRIAN    KING  ;    FROM    NIMRUD. 

tended  the  public  works,  administered  jus- 
tice, and  found  recreation  in  the  dangerous 
pastime  of  hunting  the  lion  and  the  wild 
bull.  In  war  the  king  generally  rode  in  his 
chariot,  though  he  occasionally  marched  on 
foot,  going  into  battle  in  the  same  manner. 
The  sovereign  showed  himself  freeh'  to  his 
subjedls,  but  maintained  his  haughty  dig- 


nity in  everj'thing,  and  was  verj'  seldom  the 
effeminate  voluptuary  that  the  Greeks  sup- 
posed him  to  be.  The  Assyrian  court  cere- 
monial w'as  most  elaborate  and  imposing. 
The  monarch's  dress  in  peace  and  war  was 
of  the  most  exceeding  magnificence,  and 
while  engaged  in  the  religious  ceremonies 
prescribed  for  him  he  was  clothed  in  a  special 
dress. 

The  musical  instruments  of  the  Assjt- 
ians  were  the  harp,  the  lyre,  the  guitar, 
the  pipe,  the  tambourine,  the  cj-mbal, 
the  drum,  the  dulcimer  and  the  trumpet. 
Bands  of  musicians  are  represented  in 
some  of  the  bas-reliefs,  showing  their 
employment  on  the  occasions  of  public 
ceremonials. 

The  usual  apparel  of  the  common 
people  was  a  plain  tunic,  reaching  from 
the  neck  almost  down  to  the  knee,  and 
held  to  the  waist  by  a  wide  belt  or  girdle. 
The  sleeves  were  very  short.  The  head 
and  feet  were  entirely  bare.  The  king 
and  his  great  officers  wore  head-dresses 
and  shoes.  Laborers  above  the  lowest 
grade  wore  sandals.  The  better  class 
of  laborers  wore  close-fitting  trousers  and 
leather  boots.  The  lower  classes  wore 
no  ornaments;  armlets  and  bracelets  be- 
ing worn  only  by  persons  of  rank,  and 
ear-rings  by  soldiers  and  musicians. 
Men  of  rank  wore  long  fringed  robes 
extending  almost  down  to  the  feet,  the 
sleeves  being  short  and  barely  covering 
the  shoulders.  This  robe  fitted  closely 
down  to  the  waist,  where  it  was  con- 
fined to  the  l)ody  with  a  belt  or  girdle, 
being  loose  below  the  waist.  The  jew- 
elry of  the  higher  classes  consisted  of 
fillets,  ear-rings,  annlets  and  bracelets. 
Women  of  the  upper  ranks  were  dressed 
in  long  fringed  gowns,  looser  than 
those  of  the  men,  the  sleeves  being  long. 
Over  this  dress  they  frequently  wore  a  short 
cloak  of  a  similar  pattern,  open  in  front  and 
falling  over  the  arms,  which  they  covered 
as  far  down  as  the  elbows.  Their  hair  was 
arranged  in  short  crisp  curls,  or  carried  back 
in  waves  to  the  ears,  from  which  it  was  iu 
part  twisted  into  long  pendant  ringlets,  and 


(717/. //AT/ON. 


217 


in  part  curled,  like  that  of  tin.-  men,  in  three 
or  four  rows  at  the  back  of  the  neck.  A 
fillet  frequently  encircled  the  head.  They 
also  wore  girdles  around  the  waist.  Their 
feet  were  either  bare  or  protetfled  by  sandals. 
Women  of  the  lower  clas.ses  wore  only  a 
gown  extending  down  to  the  ankles,  and  a 
hood  to  cover  the  head.  The  ornaments 
and  toilet  articles  of  the  upper  ranks  of  As- 


also  represented  in  the  later  sculptures. 
The  first  Assyrian  ships  seem  to  have  been 
round,  with  ribs  of  willow  boughs  covered 
with  skins.  They  had  neither  .stem  nor 
stern.  Thej-  were  used  chiefl}-  on  rivers, 
though  large  and  strong  enough  to  transport 
cattle. 

The  genius  and  greatness  of  the  Assyrian 
people  are  di.splayed  in  their  art  and  nianu- 


MUSIC.\L    PROCESSION,    NINEVliH. 


Syrian  women  exhibited  the  high  degree  of 
luxury  in  their  manner  of  living. 

The  Assyrians  excelled  in  the  arts  of 
weaving  and  dyeing.  They  decorated  their 
stuffs  by  introducing  colored  threads  and 
tissues  of  gold  in  the  woof.  They  had  in- 
digo, cotton  and  silk  in  abundance.  The 
chief  dignitaries  wore  richly-figured  robes. 
The  men  seem  to  have  prized  their  beards, 
which  they  dressed  in  long  artificial  curls. 

A.ssyrian  plows  have  been  found.  Irriga- 
tion was  common.  Sesame,  millet  and  corn 
were  the  chief  articles  of  food. 

The  Assyrians  were  fond  of  entertain- 
ments, and  these  were  condudled  with  great 
pomp  and  luxury.  Drinking  scenes  are 
represented  on  the  sculptures.  They  had 
vessels  of  gold  and  silver.  Wine  flowed 
freely ;  while  delicious  fruits,  rich  viands, 
honey,  incense,  conserves  of  dates,  etc., 
were  among  the  delicacies  of  the  repast. 
Women,  even  wives,  danced  naked  before 
the  guests;  while  the  music  of  stringed  in- 
struments heightened  the  festivity  of  the 
occasion. 

The  Assyrians  carried  on  an  extensive 
commerce,  principally  by  land  and  by  means 
of  caravans.  At  a  later  period  their  mari- 
time traffic  was  likewise  considerable.  They 
imitated  the  Phanician  ships,  which  are 
1-14.-U.  H. 


facflures,  and  not  in  the  field  of  literature  and 
science.  The  works  of  their  sculptors, 
and  the  produdls  of  their  shops  and  facflories, 
bear  testimony  to  the  patience,  diligence  and 
care  which  thej-  exhibited  in  every  field  of 
material  and  pracftical  acflivity.  The  char- 
adleristics  of  their  sculptures,  and  their 
manifest  appreciation  of  works  of  general 
utilit}-,  .show  their  preference  for  the  pradlical 
over  the  theoretical,  for  the  useful  over  the 
ideal,  for  the  real  over  the  imaginar\'. 

Architedlure,  the  only  one  of  the  fine  arts 
acflually  useful,  constitutes  their  greatest 
glory.  Unlike  the  Egyptians,  whose  chief 
works  were  their  temples  and  tombs,  the  in- 
terest attaching  to  which  is  spiritual  and 
ideal,  the  Assyrians  bestowed  most  attention 
on  their  palaces  and  dwellings,  the  more 
u.seful  stru(5tures.  Assyrian  sculptures 
aimed  to  illustrate  the  real,  the  historically 
true;  the  only  departure  from  this  rule  being 
the  representations  of  dragons  fighting,  and 
the  colossal  winged  man-headed  bulls  and 
lions  guarding  the  entrances  and  passages 
of  palaces,  which  are  the  symbols  of  strengh 
combined  with  intelligence.  With  the 
exception  of  the  few  emblematic  figures 
relating  to  the  Assyrian  religion,  the  A.ssyr- 
ian bas-reliefs  are  closely  copied  from  nature. 
The   imitation    is   always  laborious   but  iu 


2l8 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


most  cases  very  accurate.  Eveu  where  the 
laws  of  representation  are  apparently 
departed  from,  it  is  always  done  to  im- 
press corredl  ideas  upon  the  beholder. 
Thus  the  gigantic  stone  bulls  and  lions 
have  five  legs,  so  that  they  may  appear 
from  every  point  of  view  as  having  four. 
The  ladders  are  set  edgeways  against 
the  walls  of  besieged  cities,  to  show  that 
they  are  really  ladders.  The  dispropor- 
tionate smallness  of  citj^  walls,  as  represent- 
ed in  these  sculptures,  is  designed  to  convey 
a  full  and  correct  idea  of  the  real  fadl.  The 
spirit  of  faithfulness  and  honesty  pervading 
these  sculptures  is  fully  illustrated  b^'  the 
pains-taking  finish,  the  minute  detail,  the 
elaboration  of  every  hair  in  a  beard,  and 
every  stitch  in  the  embroidery  of  a  dress. 
The  Assj^rian  sculptures  have  a  grandeur 
and  a  dignity,  a  boldness,  a  strength,  and  a 
life-like  appearance,  which  render  them  in- 
trinsically valuable  as  works  of  art,  and 
which  excite  our  wonder  and  admiration ; 
though  in  conception,  in  grace,  and  in  free- 


ASSVRIAN    LION    Hl'NT. 

dom  and  perfection  of  outline,  they  are  sur- 
passed by  the  wonderful  produdlions  of  the 
Greek  sculptors.  Egyptian  art  was  confined 
to  a  lifeless  religious  conventionalism  which 
checked  progress ;  Assyrian  art  aimed  to 
represent  vividly  the  highest  scenes  of  hu- 
man acftivity.  All  phases  of  war — the  march 
of  the  army,  the  battle-field,  the  pursuit  of 
the  flying  foe,  the  siege  of  cities,  the  passage 
of  rivers  and  marshes,  the  submission  and 
treatment  of  captives,  and  the  ' '  mimic  war' ' 
of  hunting — the  chase  of  the  lion,  the  stag, 
the  antelope,  the  wild  bull  and  the  wild  ass — 
constitute   the  chief  subjecfts   of    Assyrian 


sculpture  ;  and  here  all  conventionality  is  ut- 
terly discarded.  Fresh  scenes,  new  group- 
ings, bold  and  strange  attitudes,  are  contin- 
ually seen ;  and  the  animal  representations 
particularly  exhibit  an  unceasing  advance 
with  the  progress  of  time,  gradually  becom- 
ing more  and  more  spirited,  more  varied,  more 
true  to  nature,  though  proportionately  losing 
in  the  qualities  of  grandeur  and  majesty. 
This  disposition  to  depidl  things  in  their  re- 
ality continues  to  develop  in  perfection;  and 
the  progress  in  grace  and  delicacy  of  execu- 
tion fully  testify  to  the  progressive  charadter 
of  Assyrian  art,  which  only  culminated  in 
the  closing  j-ears  of  the  empire,  during  the 
brilliant  reign  of  Asshur-bani-pal.  The  art 
of  Assyria  was  thoroughly  national,  and  de- 
veloped by  the  inherent  genius  of  the  race. 

In  manufadlures  and  the  useful  arts  the 
Assyrians  displayed  a  preeminence  o\-er  all 
other  ancient  Oriental  nations.  The  native 
industrial  skill  of  this  great  people  produced 
in  abundance  what  was  required  for  their 
comfort  and  happiness;  while  the  multitudes 
of  skilled  workmen  brought 
to  Nineveh  from  the  con- 
quered nations  hy  every 
war,  in  accordance  with  the 
policy  of  the  Assyrian  mon- 
archs,  led  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  foreign  fabrics  and 
manufadlures  in  the  great 
Assyrian  cities,  and  thus 
contributed  to  the  industrial 
development  of  this  adlive 
and  practical  race.  The 
plunder,  tribute  and  commerce  of  the  sub- 
je<fl  states  united  to  enrich  Assyria  with  the 
produ(fls  of  all  civilized  lands.  The  vases, 
jars,  bronzes,  glass  bottles,  carved  ornaments 
of  ivory  and  mother-of-pearl,  engraved  gems, 
bells,  di.shes,  ear-rings,  arms,  working  im- 
plements, musical  instruments,  etc.,  found 
in  recent  years  at  Koyunjik,  Nimrud  and 
Khorsabad,  were  the  produdts  of  Assyrian 
skill  and  industry.  Most  of  the  weapons 
of  warfare,  ofiensive  and  defensive,  used  by 
the  stalwart  warriors  of  Assyria,  were  forged 
in  abundance  in  the  armories  of  this  great 
militar>'  nation. 


CIVILIZATION. 


219 


Most  of  the  ornaments,  utensils,  etc.,  are 
of  elegant  forms,  and  display  much  knowl- 
edge of  metallurgy  and  other  arts,  as  well 
as  a  refined  taste:  and  some  of  these  antici- 
pate inventions  supposed  until  recently  to 
have  been  modem.  One  of  these  was  trans- 
parent glass,  and  glass-blowing  was  one  of 
the  industries  of  Assyria,  as  it  had  been  of 
ancient  Egypt.  A  lens  discovered  at  Nim- 
rud,  together  with  the  fadl  that  many  of  the 
Assyrian  inscriptions  are  so  minute  that 
they  can  not  be  read  without  the  use  of 
magnifying-glasses,  proves  that  they  must 
have  used  such  glasses  in  making  these  in- 
scriptions. 

The  ornamental  metallurgy  of  the  Assjt- 
rians  di.splayed  wonderful  skill  ;  and  con- 
sisted of  entire  figures  or  parts  of  figures 
cast  solid,  castings  in  low  relief,  and  em- 
bossed work  wrought  principally  with  the 
hammer  "but  finished  by  a  .sparing  u.se  of 
the  graving  tool."  The  solid  figures,  most 
of  which  were  small,  comprised  animal 
forms,  chiefly  lions.  Castings  in  low  relief 
were  principally  used  in  the  oniamentation 
of  thrones  and  chariots,  and  embraced  ani- 
mal and  human  figures,  winged  deities, 
griffins,  etc.  The  embossed  work  was  curi- 
ous and  elegant,  as  displayed  in  weapons, 
ornaments  for  the  person,  household  imple- 
ments and  numerous  other  objedls.  The 
ornamental  metallurgy  of  the  Assyrians  was 
mostly  in  bronze,  consisting  of  one  part  of 
tin  to  ten  parts  of  copper,  which  is  yet  re- 
garded as  the  best  proportion. 

The  Assyrians  also  understood  other 
pradtical  arts.  Their  buildings  show  that 
they  were  acquainted  with  the  princi- 
ple of  the  arch.  They  construcfled  tunnels, 
aqueducts  and  drains.     They  knew  the  u.se 


of  the  jnilley,  the  lever  and  the  roller;  and 
constantly  used  the  inclined  plane  in  attack- 
ing fortified  towns.  They  understood  the 
arts  of  inlaying,  enameling  and  overlaying 
with  metals;  and  they  cut  and  engraved 
gems  with  a  degree  of  skill  and  fini.sh  not 
excelled  by  the  French  in  our  own  day. 
Assyrian  civilization  did  not  fall  far  behind 
the  boasted  achievements  of  the  modems. 

Says  Rawlin.son  conceming  the  civiliza- 
tion of  this  wonderful  ancient  people : 
' '  With  much  that  was  barbaric  .still  attach- 
ing to  them,  with  a  rude  and  inartificial 
govemment,  savage  passions,  a  debasing 
religion,  and  a  general  tendency  to  materi- 
alism, they  were,  towards  the  close  of  their 
empire,  in  all  the  ordinary  arts  and  appli- 
ances of  life,  ^•ery  nearly  on  a  par  with  our- 
selves; and  thus  their  history  furnishes  a 
waming — which  the  records  of  nations  con- 
stantly repeat — that  the  greatest  material 
prosperity  may  co-exist  with  the  decline — 
and  herald  the  downfall — of  a  kingdom." 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  inherent 
genius  of  the  Assj'rian  people  displayed  it- 
self in  centuries  of  continued  conquest  and 
in  material  greatness.  The  glory  of  their 
arms  and  the  grandeur  of  their  art  gave 
them  the  ascendency  over  the  nations  of 
Western  Asia  for  almost  seven  hundred 
years.  Their  almost  uninterrupted  course 
of  conquests  poured  wealth  into  their  great 
capitals,  developed  luxurj-,  and  made  them 
haughty  and  domineering.  The  mingled 
civilization  and  barbarism  exhibited  in  the 
case  of  this  mighty  ancient  Asiatic  people 
has  ever  been  the  distinguishing  charadter- 
istic  of  all  the  great  Oriental  empires  which 
have  successively  risen,  flourished,  decayed, 
and  crumbled  to  pieces. 


220 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


vSECTlON    v.— ASSYRIAN    RELIGION. 


^„HE  Assyrian  religion  was  al- 
^  most  identical  with  the  Chal- 
daean,  the  only  essential  point 
of  difference  being  that  the 
supreme  national  deity  of  As- 
syria, Asshur,  "the  Great  Lord,"  was  un- 
known in  Chaldtea,  where  II  was  the  chief 
god.  With  this  solitarj'  exception,  the  gods 
of  Chaldasa  were  also  the  gods  of  Assyria. 
The  minor  points  of  difference  were  that 
certain  deities  prominent  in  the  Chaldaean 
pantheon  occupied  a  stibordinate  position  in 
the  pantheon  of  Assyria,  and  vice  versa. 
Each  pantheon  began  with  the  preeminence 
of  a  single  god  followed  by  the  same  groupings 
of  identically  the  same  divinities,  and,  after 
that,  by  a  multitude  of  local  deities.  Each 
country  had  almost  the  same  worship — tem- 
ples, altars  and  ceremonies  of  a  similar  char- 
acfler — the  same  religious  emblems — the 
same  religious  ideas.  But  Assyria  furnishes 
us  with  a  clearer  knowledge  of  the  material 
aspe<fts  of  the  religious  system  so  nearly 
common  to  the  two  nations. 

Asshur,  the  head  of  the  Assyrian  pan- 
theon, is  usually  called  "the  Great  Lord," 
' '  the  King  of  all  the  Gods, "  "  He  who  rules 
supreme  over  the  Gods."  He  is  also  called 
"the  Father  of  the  Gods,"  though  that  title 
is  more  properl}'  assigned  to  Bel.  Asshur 
alwaj's  has  the  first  place  in  invocations. 
The  testimony  of  the  Assyrian  inscriptions 
shows  that  Asshur  was  considered  the  special 
tutelary  deity  of  the  Assyrian  monarchs  and 
of  the  nation.  He  put  kings  on  the  throne, 
firmly  established  them  in  authority,  pro- 
longed their  reigns,  maintained  their  power, 
protecfted  their  fortre.sses  and  armies,  made 
their  names  famous,  and  the  like.  They 
turned  to  him  for  vidlory  in  war,  to  give 
them  all  they  desire,  and  to  pennit  their 
thrones  to  be  occupied  by  their  dynasty  to 
the  latest  posterity.  They  usually  spoke  of 
him  as  "Asshur,  my  Lord."  They  repre- 
sented themselves  as  devoting  their  lives 
to  his  service.  They  pro.secuted  their  wars 
to  extend  his  worsbij).     In  his  name  they 


fought  their  battles  and  carried  ruin  and  de- 
struction among  their  enemies.  When  they 
conquered  a  country  they  "set  up  the  em- 
blems of  Asshur, ' '  and  spread  a  knowledge 
of  his  laws  and  his  worship. 

The  tutelage  of  Asshur  over  Assyria  is 
significantly  indicated  by  the  identity  of  his 
name  with  that  of  their  countrj-.  The  god 
Asshur,  the  country  Asshur,  and  the  city 
A,sshur,  and  "an  Assyrian"  are  all  repre- 
sented by  the  same  term,  which  is  written 
both  Ashur  and  Asshur.  This  tutelage  is 
likewise  shown  by  the  circumstance  that 
Asshur  had  no  famous  temple  or  shrine  in 
an}'  particular  Assyrian  city  like  the  other 
deities,  and  that  his  worship  was  general 
throughout  Assyria.  The  earl}'  A.ss)'rian 
capital  was  named  after  this  supreme  national 
deity;  and  all  the  local  temples  and  shrines 
in  the  land  were  open  to  his  worship,  in  ad- 
dition to  that  of  the  divinities  to  whom  they 
were  dedicated.  The  in.scriptions  contin- 
ually describe  the  Assyrians  as  "the  ser- 
vants of  As.shur,"  and  allude  to  their  foes 
as  ' '  the  enemies  of  Asshur. ' '  No  phrases 
of  a  like  characfler  have  been  employed  in  re- 
ferring to  any  other  deity  of  the  Assyrian 
pantheon. 

It  is  therefore  certain  that  the  ancestor 
and  founder  of  the  Assyrian  nation,  Asshur, 
the  son  of  Shem,  had  been  deified  after  his 
death,  as  Nimrod  had  been;  and  that  he 
was  thenceforth  "the  Great  Lord"  of  the 
Ass5-rians — the  supreme  ruler  over  heaven 
and  earth — the  chief  objedl  of  Assyrian 
adoration. 

The  favorite  emblem  of  Asshur  was  the 
winged  circle  or  globe,  from  which  is  fre- 
quently seen  issuing  a  figure  in  a  horned 
cap,  sometimes  holding  a  bow  only,  some- 
times discharging  arrows  from  a  bow  against 
the  enemies  of  Assyria.  It  has  been  con- 
jecftured  that  the  circle  symbolizes  eternity, 
that  the  wings  signify  omnipotence,  and 
that  the  human  figure  typifies  wisdom  or 
intelligence.  There  are  numerous  varieties 
of    this  emblem.      Sometimes   the   human 


Ri:i.ii,io.\\ 


221 


figure  has  no  bow,  and  only  extends  the 
right  hand.  vSonietimes  both  hands  arc  ex- 
tended, and  a  ring  or  chaplet  is  held  in  the 
left.  In  one  instance  there  is  no  full  human 
figure,  but  a  pair  of  hands  are  seen  issuing 
from  behind  the  winged  disk,  the  right  hand 
showing  the  palm,  and  the  left  holding  a 
bow.  In  man)'  cases  the  winged  circle  ap- 
pears alone,  with  the  disk  either  plain  or 
ornamented.  Sennacherib's  signet-cylinder 
bears  an  emblem  of  Aeshur  having  three 
human  heads,  that  on  the  entire  human 
figure,  and  one  on  each  side  of  it,  resting  on 
the  feathers  of  the  wing. 

The  sculptures  represent  the  winged  circle 
in  close  connecflion  with  the  king,  who  has 
it  embroidered  upon  his  robes,  engraved 
upon  his  cylinder,  represented  over  his  head 
in  the  rock  tablets  on  which  his  image  is 
carved;  and  who  stands  or  kneels  in  adora- 
tion before  it,  fights  under  its  shadow,  re- 
turns in  triumph  under  its  protection,  and 
assigns  it  a  prominent  place  in  the  scenes  in 
which  he  himself  is  represented  on  his  obe- 
lisks. It  is  when  the  king  is  engaged  in 
battle  that  Asshur  is  represented  as  drawing 
the  bow  and  aiming  the  arrow  towards  the 
king's  enemies.  It  is  when  he  is  returning 
in  triumph  from  the  field  of  conquest  that 
As.shur  is  represented  as  only  carrs'ing  the 
bow  in  his  left  hand,  and  holding  out  his 
right.  In  peaceful  .scenes  Asshur  is  repre- 
sented without  a  bow.  In  representations 
of  the  king  at  worship  Asshur  extends  his 
hand  in  aid.  Where  the  monarch  is  re- 
presented as  engaged  in  secular  matters 
Asshur 's  presence  is  indicated  by  the  winged 
circle  without  the  human  figure. 

The  sacred  tree  is  an  embleiu  frequently 
seen,  under  various  forms,  in  connedlion 
with  the  symbol  of  Asshur.  The  simplest 
form  consists  of  a  short  pillar  springing 
from  a  solitar>'  pair  of  ram's  honis,  upon 
which  is  mounted  a  capital  consisting  of  two 
pairs  of  rams'  horns,  with  one,  two  or  three 
horizontal  bands  between  them;  while  above 
this  capital  is  a  scroll  like  that  usually  sur- 
mounting the  winged  circle,  and  above  the 
scroll  is  a  flower  like  the  Greek  "honey- 
suckle ornaments."     In  some  cases  the  pil- 


lar is  elongated,  with  a  capital  in  the  mid- 
dle as  well  as  one  at  the  top;  the  blo.s.som 
above  the  upper  capital,  and  usually  the 
-Stem  also,  throwing  out  many  smaller  blos- 
soms of  the  same  kind,  or  fir-cones,  or  pome- 
granates. Sometimes  there  is  likewise  an 
intricate  network  of  branches  forming  an 
arch  surrounding  the  tree.  This  Assj-rian 
sacred  tree  has  been  compared  with  the 
Scriptural  "tree  of  life." 

In  early  times  the  A.s.syrians  ranked  Anu 
and  \'ul  next  to  As.shur;  but  later  they  ac- 
corded this  honor  to  Bel,  Sin,  Shamas,  Vul, 
Nin  and  Nergal.  Gula,  Ishtar  and  Beltis 
were  fa^'orite  goddesses.  Hoa,  Nebo  and 
Merodach  were  less  worshiped  in  Assj'ria 
than  in  Chaldaea,  or  Babylonia,  though  they 
were  more  esteemed  in  the  later  period  of 
Assyrian  histor3^  As  the  charadleristics  of 
these  deities  have  been  described  in  our  ac- 
count of  the  religion  of  Chaldcea,  we  will 
here  simply  refer  to-their  worship  in  Assyria, 
and  to  the  temples  dedicated  to  them. 

The  worship  of  Anu  was  introduced  into 
Assj^ria  from  Babylonia  during  the  period 
of  Chaldaean  supremacy  before  Assyria  had 
become  an  independent  kingdom.  Shamas- 
\'ul,  the  son  of  Ismi-Dagon,  King  of  Chal- 
daea, eretled  a  temple  to  Anu  and  Vul  at 
Asshur,  the  early  As.syrian  capital,  about 
B.  C.  1820.  The  In.scription  of  Tiglath- 
Pileser  I.  says  that  this  temple  lasted  six 
hundred*  and  twenty-one  )-ears,  when,  on 
account  of  its  decayed  condition,  it  was  torn 
down  by  Asshur-dayan  I.,  the  great-grand- 
father of  Tiglath-Pileser  I.  Its  site  re- 
mained vacant  for  sixty  years,  after  which 
Tiglath-Pileser  I.  rebuilt  the  temple  more 
splendidly  than  before,  and  thenceforth  it 
was  one  of  the  principal  shrines  of  Assyria. 
A  tradition  relating  to  this  ancient  temple 
was  the  source  from  which  the  site  of  the 
city  of  A.s.shur  in  later  times  derived  the 
name  of  Telane,  or  "the  Mound  of  Asshur, ' ' 
a  title  it  bears  in  Stephen. 

Ann's  name  is  no  element  in  the  names  of 
monarchs  or  of  other  prominent  characfters, 
and  is  not  found  in  many  solemn  invocations; 
but  where  his  name  occurs  it  is  always 
placed  next  to  that  of  Asshur,  and  Tiglath- 


222 


ANCIENT   HISTORY— ASS ) 'RIA. 


Pileser  I.  mentions  him  in  his  great  Inscrip- 
tion, as  his  lord  and  protecflor,  in  the  place 
next  to  Asshur.  Asshur-izir-pal  calls  himself 
"him  who  honors  Ann,"  or  "him who  hon- 
ors Ann  and  Dagon."  Asshur-izir-pal's  son 
and  successor,  Shalmaneser  II.,  gives  Ann 
the  second  place  in  the  invocation  of  thirteen 
gods  with  which  he  begins  his  record.  The 
monarchs  of  the  New  or  Lower  Assyrian 
Empire  did  not  usually  esteem  Anu  verj- 
highly,  with  the  exception  of  Sargon,  who 
glorified  him,  coupled  him  with  Asshur,  and 
made  him  the  tutelarj-  god  of  one  of  the  gates 
of  his  new  city,  Dur-Sargina  (now  Khorsa- 
bad),  uniting  him  in  this  capacity  with  the 
goddess  Ishtar.  Anu  did  not  have  many 
temples  in  A.ssyria,  having  none  at  Nineveh 
or  Calah,  the  only  important  one  being  at 
Asshur. 

Bel,  or  Bel-Nimrod,  according  to  the  tes- 
timony of  the  Assyrian  monuments,  was 
worshiped  as  extensively  in  Assyria  as  in 
Chaldaea,  or  Babylonia.  From  the  time  of 
Tiglath- Pileser  I.  to  the  fall  of  the  Assyrian 
Empire,  the  Assyrians,  as  a  nation,  were 
specificalh-  denominated  ' '  the  people  of  Bel ; " 
and  a  certain  part  of  Nineveh  was  desig- 
nated "the  city  of  Bel."  The  word  Bel  was 
an  element  in  the  names  of  three  Assyrian 
kings.  In  the  invocation  of  the  gods  Bel's 
place  is  next  to  Asshur's  when  Anu's  name 
is  omitted;  but  when  Anu  occupies  his  proper 
place  next  to  Asshur,  Bel  ranks  third.  In 
several  places,  however,  where  Anu  is 
omitted,  Shamas,  the  Sun-god,  is  second, 
and  Bel  ranks  third. 

Bel  was  worshiped  in  early  Assyrian 
times,  as  indicated  by  the  royal  names  of 
Bel-.sumili-kapi  and  Bel-lush,  as  borne  by 
two  of  the  earliest  Assyrian  monarchs.  Bel 
had  a  temple  at  Asshur  in  connection  with 
II,  and  its  antiquity  is  proven  by  the  facft 
that  as  early  as  the  time  of  Tiglath- 
Pileser  I.,  B.  C.  1130,  it  had  fallen  into  de- 
cay and  was  rebuilt  by  that  famous  king. 
Bel  had  also  a  temple  at  Calah,  and  four 
"arks"  or  "tabernacles,"  whose  sites  are 
not  identified.  Sargon  accorded  high  honor 
to  Bel,  coupling  him  with  Anu  in  his  royal 
titles,  and  dedicating  to  him,  in  conjuncflion 


with  his  wife,  Beltis,  one  of  the  gates  of  his 
city.  In  this  dedication  Bel  is  called  "the 
establisher  of  the  foundations  of  his  city;" 
and  in  many  passages  Sargon  attributes  his 
royal  authority  to  the  favor  of  Bel  and 
Merodach. 

It  is  believed  that  the  horned  cap,  the 
general  emblem  of  divinity,  was  the  special 
symbol  of  Bel.  Esar-haddon  says  that  he 
set  up  over  "the  image  of  his  majesty  the 
emblems  of  Asshur,  the  Sun,  Bel,  Nin  and 
Ishtar."  The  other  kings  invariably  men- 
tion Bel  as  one  of  the  chief  objec5ls  of  their 
worship. 

Hoa  was  not  prominenth-  worshiped  in 
Assyria.  Asshur-izir-pal  says  that  Hoa  alot- 
ted  the  senses  of  hearing,  seeing  and  under- 
standing to  the  four  thousand  deities  of 
heaven  and  earth;  and  then,  mentioning  that 
the  four  thousand  deities  had  transfer- 
red these  senses  to  himself,  he  assimies 
Hoa's  titles  and  identifies  himself  with  this 
god.  Asshur-izir-pal's  son  and  successor, 
Shalmaneser  II.,  the  Black  Obelisk  king,  in 
his  opening  in\ocation,  assigned  Hoa  his 
proper  place,  between  Bel  and  Sin.  Sargon 
placed  one  of  the  gates  of  his  new  city 
under  Hoa's  prote(5tion,  in  conjundlion  with 
Bilat-Ili,  "the  Mistress  of  the  Gods,"  be- 
lieved to  be  Gula,  the  Sun-goddess.  Sen- 
nacherib, after  his  successful  expedition 
across  the  Persian  Gulf,  offered  sacrifice  to 
Hoa  on  the  .sea-shore,  presenting  him  with  a 
golden  boat,  a  golden  fish  and  a  golden 
coffer.  Hoa's  emblem,  the  serpent,  was 
found  on  the  black  stones  on  which  were 
recorded  benefadtions,  and  on  the  Babylon- 
ian cylinder-seals,  but  was  not  adopted  by 
the  Assyrian  monarchs  among  the  divine 
symbols  worn  by  them,  nor  among  those 
in.scribed  by  them  above  their  efiigies. 
Hoa's  name  .seldom  occurs  among  the  royal 
invocations.  His  only  two  known  temples 
in  Assyria  were  the  one  at  Asshur  (now 
Kileh-Sherghat)  and  the  one  at  Calah  (now 
Nimrud).  The  Assyrian  devotion  to  Nin, 
the  tutelary  god  of  the  Assyrian  monarchs 
and  of  their  capital,  caused  Nin's  worship 
gradually  to  sujier.sede  that  of  Hoa. 

Beltis,   "the  Great  Mother,"  the  wife  of 


RELIGION. 


223 


Bel,  ranked  in  Assyria  next  to  the  triad 
embracing  Ann,  Rcl  and  Iloa.  She  is 
usiiall)'  mentioned  in  the  Ass\-rian  inscri])- 
tions  in  close  relation  with  her  hnsband. 
The  Assyrians  particularly  considered  Beltis 
"the  Queen  of  fertility,"  thus  resembling 
the  Greek  Demeter,  the  Roman  Ceres,  who 
was  also  known  as  "the  Great  Mother." 
Sargon  put  one  of  the  gates  of  his  new  city 
under  the  jMoteelion  of  Bellis,  along  with 
her  husband,  Hel;  and  Sargon's  great-grand- 
son, Asshur-bani-pal,  repaired  and  re-dedi- 
cated to  this  goddess  a  temple  at  Nineveh, 
originally  erected  by  Asshur-izir-pal.  She 
also  had  a  temple  at  Asshur:  and  at  Calah 
was  a  temple  dedicated  either  to  Beltis  or  to 
Ishtar,  the  epithets  used  applying  to  either 
goddess.  The  goddess,  though  known  in 
Assyria  as  Beltis,  was  called  Mylitta  in 
Babylonia. 

Sin,  the  Moon-god,  occupied  the  next 
place  to  Beltis  in  the  Assyrian  pantheon, 
the  sixth  place  among  the  gods  where  Beltis 
was  inserted,  and  the  fifth  place  wherever 
her  name  did  not  occur.  His  worship  in  the 
early  period  of  the  A.s.syrian  Empire  is  indi- 
cated by  the  invocation  of  Tiglath-Pileser  I., 
where  he  is  mentioned  in  the  third  place 
among  the  gods,  between  Bel  and  Shamas. 
Sin's  emblem,  the  crescent,  was  woni  by  As- 
shur-izir-pal, and  is  always  .seen  among  the 
divine  symljols  which  the  Ass3'rian  monarchs 
inscribed  oA-er  their  effigies.  Sin  was  one 
of  the  most  highly  esteemed  of  the  Assyrian 
deities,  and  his  sign  is  found  as  often  as  any 
other  among  both  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
cylinder-seals.  His  name  is  sometimes  seen 
in  the  appellation  of  kings  and  princes;  as 
in  that  of  Sennacherib,  signifj-ing  "Sin 
multiplies  brethren."  >Sargon  was  particu- 
larly' devoted  to  the  worship  of  Sin,  after 
whom  he  named  one  of  his  sons,  and  to 
whom,  in  conne(5tion  with  vShamas,  the  Sun- 
god,  he  erected  a  temple  at  his  new  city,  as- 
signing to  him  the  second  place  among  the 
tutelary  deities  of  the  city. 

The  Assyrians  seem  to  have  regarded  Sin 
as  a  very  ancient  god,  and  when  they  desired 
to  mark  a  very  old  period  they  would  say: 
"From  the  origin  of  the  god  Sin."     This 


was  a  vestige  of  the  old  connecflion  of  Assyria 
with  Chakkta,  who.se  jirimitive  capital,  IJr, 
was  under  the  sjiecial  protecflion  of  the 
Moon-god,  and  where  the  mo.st  ancient  tem- 
ple was  dedicated  to  his  worshii).  The  only 
two  temjiles  known  to  lunx*  been  eredled  to 
vSin  in  Assj-ria  were  the  one  dedicated  to  him, 
along  with  Shamas,  by  Sargon  at  his  new 
city,  and   the  other  to  Sin  alone  at  Calah. 

Shamas,  the  Sun-god,  ranked  next  below 
Sin,  but  was  more  popular  and  far  more 
generally  worshiped  in  Assyria.  Many 
passages  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the 
A.ssj'rian  kings  esteemed  him  next  to  Asshur, 
as  they  really  ranked  him  above  Bel  in  some 
of  their  li.sts.  The  emblem  of  the  Sun-god, 
the  four-raj'ed  orb,  was  worn  upon  the  neck 
of  the  Assj^rian  king,  and  is  seeii  more  gen- 
erally than  most  others  upon  the  cylinder- 
.seals.  In  some  cases  the  emblem  of  Shamas 
is  even  united  with  Asshur's  emblem,  the 
central  circle  of  which  is  marked  by  the 
fourfold  raj's  of  Shamas. 

The  worship  of  Shamas  in  Assyria  ex- 
tended to  a  vers-  remote  antiquity.  Tiglath- 
Pileser  I.  mentions  him  in  his  invocation, 
and  represents  himself  as  ruling  specially 
under  his  auspices.  Asshur-izir-pal  names 
Asshur  and  Shamas  as  the  tutelar}'  gods 
under  whose  influence  he  condudled  his 
wars.  Asshur-izir-pal's  son  and  .successor, 
Shalmaneser  11. ,  the  Black  Obelisk  king, 
gives  Shamas  his  proper  place  among  the 
gods  whom  he  invokes  at  the  beginning  of 
his  long  Inscription.  The  kings  of  the  New 
or  Lower  Assyrian  Empire  rendered  him 
more  devotion  than  their  predecessors.  Sar- 
gon dedicated  the  north  gate  of  his  new  city 
to  Shamas,  along  with  \'ul,  the  Air-god; 
and  erecfted  a  temple  to  both  Shamas  and 
Sin  at  the  same  city,  assigning  the  Sun-god 
the  third  place  among  the  tutelary  gods  of 
the  new  city.  Seimacherib  and  Esar-had- 
don  named  Sham;is  next  to  Asshur  in  pas- 
sages when  mentioning  the  gods  whom  they 
considered  their  chief  protectors. 

The  only  special  temple  dedicated  to  the 
worship  of  Shamas  was  the  one  assigned  to 
him  and  »Sin  jointly  at  Sargon's  new  cit}'; 
but  his  images  are  frequently  seen  among 


224 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


the  lists  of  idols,  so  that  he  may  have  been 
worshiped  in  temples  consecrated  to  other 
deities.  His  emblem  is  usually  seen  united 
with  that  of  the  Moon-god,  either  beside  or 
above  it. 

Vul,  the  Air-god,  was  known  in  Assyria 
from  the  earliest  times;  a  temple  having 
been  eredled  at  Asshur,  during  the  period 
of  Assyria's  subjection  to  Chaldsea,  by 
Shamas-Vul,  the  son  of  Ismi-Dagon,  King 
of  Chaldasa;  as  well  as  the  temple  which 
the  same  king  dedicated  to  both  Anu  and 
Vul.  As  these  edifices  had  fallen  to  ruin 
by  the  time  of  Tiglath-Pileser  I.,  that  mon- 
arch rebuilt  them  from  their  base;  and  A'ul, 
being  regarded  as  one  of  the  special  "guard- 
ian deities,"  was  worshiped  in  both  tem- 
ples. In  Shalmeneser  II. 's  Black  Obelisk 
invocation  the  intermediate  place  between 
Sin  and  Shamas  is  assigned  to  Vul,  and  on 
that  obelisk  is  recorded  the  fadl  that  Shal- 
maneser  II.  held  a  festival  in  honor  of  both 
Asshur  and  Vul.  Sargon  gave  Vul  the 
fourth  place  among  the  tutelary  deities  of  his 
new  cit}',  and  dedicated  to  him  the  north 
gate  in  connedtion  with  Shamas,  the  Sun- 
god.  Sennacherib  spoke  of  hurling  thun- 
der on  his  enemies  like  Vul,  and  other  As- 
sj-rian  monarchs  say  they  "rush  on  the 
enemy  like  the  whirlwind  of  Vul,"  or 
"sweep  a  country  as  with  the  whirlwind  of 
Vul. ' '  The  Tiglath-Pileser  Inscription  men- 
tions Vul  as  "he  who  causes  the  tempest  to 
rage  over  hostile  lands."  The  name  Vul 
often  occurred  as  an  element  in  the  names 
of  kings  and  other  personages,  as  in  Vul- 
lush,  Shamas-Vul,  etc.  The  symbol  of 
Vul,  the  double  or  triple  bolt,  is  often  seen 
among  the  emblems  worn  by  the  Assj'rian 
monarchs,  and  engraved  above  their  heads 
on  the  rock  tablets.  Besides  his  two  temples 
at  Asshur,  Vul  had  a  temple  at  Calah  dedi- 
cated to  him  and  his  ^\^fe,  the  goddess 
Shala. 

Gula,  the  vSun-godde.ss,  the  wife  of  Sha- 
mas, was  not  very  highly  ranked  among  the 
Assyrian  deities.  It  is  true,  her  emblem, 
the  eight-rayed  disk,  was  borne  by  the  As- 
syrian kings,  along  with  her  husband's 
symbol,  and  is  often  inscribed  on  the  rock 


tablets,  on  the  stones  on  which  benefadtions 
are  recorded,  and  on  the  cylinder-seals.  But 
her  name  is  not  often  found  in  the  inscrip- 
tions, and,  where  it  does  occur,  it  is  seen 
low  down  in  the  lists.  Gula  is  the  next  to 
the  last  among  the  thirteen  deities  named 
in  the  Black  Obelisk  invocation.  The  only 
other  places  where  she  is  mentioned  is  in  in- 
scriptions of  a  distiudtly-religious  nature. 
At  Asshur  was  a  temple  dedicated  to  Gula, 
Ishtar  and  ten  inferior  deities.  Gula's  other 
Assj-rian  temple  was  at  Calah,  where  her 
husband  likewise  had  a  temple.  Gula  has 
been  identified  with  Bilat-Ili,  "the  Mistress 
of  the  Gods,"  to  whom,  together  with  Hoa, 
Sargon  dedicated  one  of  the  gates  of  his 
new  city. 

Nin  was  one  of  the  most  devotedly  wor- 
shiped in  Assyria  among  the  .second  order 
of  gods.  The  oldest  traditions  mention  Nin 
as  the  founder  of  the  Assyrian  royal  race, 
and  the  might}'  city  which  finally  became 
so  famous  as  the  capital  and  metropolis  of 
the  Assyrian  Empire  derived  its  name  from 
this  god.  As  far  back  as  the  thirteenth 
century  before  Christ,  Nin  became  an  ele- 
ment in  ro}-al  names.  The  Ninus  of  the 
Greek  writers  has  been  regarded  b>-  modems 
as  the  Nin  of  the  Assyrian  inscriptions.  He- 
rodotus and  Ctesias  both  considered  Ninus 
as  the  founder  of  the  Assyrian  dynasty. 

Tiglath-Pileser  I.,  the  first  Assyrian  king 
who  has  left  us  an  historical  inscription,  and 
who  considered  himself  under  Nin's  guard- 
ianship, is  called  "the  illustrious  prince 
whom  Asshur  and  Nin  have  exalted  to  the 
utmost  wishes  of  his  heart. ' '  This  monarch 
mentions  Nin  sometimes  alone,  and  some- 
times along  with  Asshur,  as  his  ' '  guardian 
deity."  Nin  and  Nergal  are  .spoken  of  as 
.sharpening  weapons  for  Tiglath-Pile.ser,  and 
it  is  further  said  that  under  the  auspices  of 
Nin  the  most  ferocious  animals  fall  beneath 
these  weapons.  Asshur-izir-pal  eredted  a 
splendid  temple  to  Nin  at  Calah.  Asshur- 
izir-pal' s  grandson,  Shamas-Vul  I.,  dedi- 
cated to  Nin  the  obelisk  which  he  set  up  at 
Calah  to  commemorate  his  vidtories.  Sar- 
gon put  the  new  city  -which  he  founded  under 
Nin's  protedlion,  and  invoked  this  god  .spe- 


REI.IC.IOX. 


225 


cially  to  guard  his  gorgeous  palace.  Sar- 
gon's  veneration  for  Niii  was  strikingly  in- 
dicated by  the  ornamentation  of  that  magni- 
ficent structure;  and  Nin's  emblem,  the 
winged  man-headed  bull,  stood  guard  at  all 
its  principal  gateways.  The  figure  stran- 
gling a  lion,  occupying  so  prominent  a  place 
on  the  harem  portal  facing  the  great  court, 
represented  this  god.  Sargon  attributed  his 
viclories  in  war  to  the  favor  of  Nin,  and  for 
this  reason  he  placed  Nin's  emblems  on  the 
sculptures  representing  his  military  expedi- 
tions. Sennacherib,  Sargon's  son  and  succes- 
sor, had  the  same  reverence  for  Nin,  as  he  also 
placed  the  winged  man-headed  bull  at  most 
of  the  doorways  of  his  magnificent  palace  at 
Nineveh,  and  assigned  the  figure  strangling 
the  lion  a  prominent  place  on  the  grand  fa- 
cade of  the  same  splendid  edifice.  Esar-had- 
don  states  that  he  continued  in  the  worship 
of  Nin,  and  that  he  set  up  the  emblem  of  that 
god  over  his  own  royal  effigy,  in  conne(5lion 
with  the  symbols  of  Asshur,  Shamas,  Bel 
and  Ishtar. 

Nin's  name  entered  as  an  element  into  the 
names  of  three  Assyrian  kings — Nin-pala- 
zira  and  the  two  Tiglathi-Nins.  The  prin- 
cipal temples  dedicated  to  Nin  were  at  Calah. 
The  vast  edifice  at  the  north-western  corner 
of  the  great  Nimrud  mound,  including  the 
pyramidal  elevation  constituting  the  most 
conspicuous  feature  of  the  ruins,  was  a  tem- 
ple dedicated  to  Nin  by  Asshur-izir-pal,  who 
erecfted  the  north-west  palace.  It  has  been 
supposed  that  this  edifice  was  the  ' '  bu.sta 
Nini"  of  the  Greek  writers,  where  Ninus, 
whom  the  Greeks  considered  the  hero- 
founder  of  the  Assyrian  nation,  was  interred 
and  specially'  worshiped.  This  great  tem- 
ple was  named  Bit-zira,  or  Beth-zira,  and 
from  its  fane  Nin  had  the  title  Pal-zira, 
"the  .son  of  Zira."  Nin's  other  temple  at 
Calah  was  named  Bit-kura,  or  Beth-kura, 
from  the  fane  of  which  Nin  was  called  Pal- 
kioa,  "the  .son  of  Kura." 

Merodach  was  a  god  mentioned  by  most  of 
the  early  Assyrian  kings  in  their  opening  in- 
vocations, and  an  allusion  in  their  inscrip- 
tions indicates  that  he  was  regarded  as  a  very 
powerful  god.     Shalmaneser  II.,  the  Black 


Obeli.sk  king,  .says  in  one  place  that  "the 
fear  of  Asshur  and  Merodach  fell  upon  his 
enemies."  Hut  Merodach  was  not  a  popu- 
lar deity  in  Assyria  until  the  later  times 
of  the  empire,  \"ul-lush  III.  being  the  first 
monarch  who  a.ssigned  him  a  prominent 
place  in  the  Assyrian  pantheon.  vSargon 
and  his  successors  continued  the  worship  of 
Merodach.  Sargon  constantly  ascribed  his 
power  to  the  united  favor  of  Asshur  and 
Merodach,  and  Esar-haddon  sculptured  the 
emblems  of  these  two  gods  over  the  images 
of  foreign  gods  presented  to  him  by  a  sup- 
pliant prince.  But  Merodach  had  no  temple 
in  Assyria. 

Nergal  was  a  god  highh'  reverenced,  be- 
ing regarded  by  the  Assyrian  monarchs  as 
their  divine  ancestor,  Sargon  having  traced 
the  line  of  descent  through  three  hundred 
and  fift}'  generations.  Nergal's  symbol  was 
the  winged  man-headed  lion,  or  the  national 
lion,  whose  figure  enters  largely  into  Ass^t- 
ian  architecture.  The  confident  reliance  of 
the  Assyrians  on  Nergal's  protedlion  is 
proven  by  the  conspicuous  place  his  em- 
blems even'where  occupied  in  their  palaces. 
Nin  and  Nergal,  as  the  gods  of  war  and 
hunting,  in  which  occupations  the  A.ssyriau 
kings  spent  their  lives,  were  tutelary  gods 
of  these  monarchs;  and  these  two  deities  are 
found  equally  a.ssociated  in  the  royal  inscrip- 
tions and  sculptures.  Sennacherib  dedi- 
cated a  temple  to  Nergal  at  Tarbisi  (now 
Sherif-Khan);  and  he  may  have  had  one  at 
Calah,  as  a  smaller  temple  with  the  lion  en- 
trance is  found  in  the  ruins  on  the  north- 
west comer  of  the  Nimrud  mound,  and  as 
he  was  mentioned  as  one  of  the  ' '  resident 
gods"  of  Calah. 

Ishtar  was  a  favorite  goddess  of  the  As- 
syrian kings,  who  styled  her  "their  lady," 
and  sometimes  coupled  her  with  Asshur, 
"the  Great  Lord,"  in  their  invocations.  Ish- 
tar had  a  very  old  temple  at  Asshur,  the 
primitive  Assyrian  capital,  and  this  temple 
Tiglath-Pileser  I.  repaired  aud  beautified. 
Asshur-izir-pal  erected  a  second  temple  to 
her  at  Nineveh,  and  she  had  a  third  at  Ar- 
bela,  which  Asshur-bani-pal  says  he  restored. 
Sargon   put   the  western  gate  of  his   new 


226 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR } '.  — .  /  55  }  'RIA. 


city  under  the  united  protection  of  Ishtar 
and  Anu.  Sargon's  son  and  successor, 
Sennacherib,  spoke  of  Asshur  and  Ishtar  as 
about  to  "call  the  kings  his  sons  to  their 
sovereignty  over  Assyria,"  and  implored 
Asshur  and  Ishtar  to  "hear  their  prayers." 
Sennacherib's  grandson,  Asshur-bani-pal,  the 
royal  hunter,  was  de\-oted  to  Ishtar,  whom 
he  considered  the  special  patron  of  his  fa\-or- 
ite  pastime,  the  chase  of  the  lion  and  the 
wild  bull.  Ishtar  appears  as  one  goddess 
divided  into  many;  as  the  Ishtar  of  Nin- 
eveh, the  Ishtar  of  Arbela,  and  the  Ishtar  of 
Babylon  are  all  distinguished  from  each 
other,  a  separate  address  being  made  to  each 
of  them  in  the  .same  iuvocation,  as  in  that 
of  Sennacherib  and  in  that  of  Esar-haddon. 
Thus  though  Ishtar  was  a  general  objecft 
of  wonship  throughout  Assyria,  she  had  a 
dLstiuclly  local  charaifter  in  the  various  As- 
syrian and  Babylonian  cities. 

Nebo  was  one  of  the  most  ancient  of  As- 
syrian gods,  and  his  name  enters  as  an  ele- 
ment into  a  king's  name  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury before  Christ,  namely  that  of  Mutaggil- 
Nebo.  But  he  was  not  extensively  worshiped 
until  V'ul-lush  III.  had  given  him  a  promi- 
nent place  in  the  A.s.syrian  pantheon  after 
leading  an  expedition  into  Babylonia,  where 
Nebo  had  always  been  highlj'  honored. 
"\'ul-lush  III.  .set  up  two  statues  to  Nebo  at 
Calah,  and  perhaps  ereifled  to  him  the  tem- 
ple there  called  Bit-Saggil,  or  Beth-Saggil, 
from  which  Nebo  derived  his  name  of  Pal 
Bit-Saggil  Sennacherib  and  Esar-haddon 
held  this  god  in  high  veneration,  the  latter 
putting  him  above  Merodach  in  au  important 
invocation.  A.sshur-bani-pal  also  paid  Nebo 
much  reverence,  alluding  to  him  and  his 
wife,  'W(''armita,  as  the  deities  uuder  whose 
auspices  he  engaged  in  .some  literarj'  work. 

After  these  chief  deities,  the  Assyrians 
recognized  and  adored  a  multitude  of  inferior 
divinities.  Beltis,  the  wife  of  Bel;  and  Gula, 
the  wife  of  Sharaas;  also  Ishtar,  who  is 
sometimes  alluded  to  as  the  wife  of  Nebo, 
were  all  goddesses  of  exalted  rank  and  im- 
portance. But  Sheruba,  the  wife  of  .Asshur; 
Anata,  or  Anuta,  the  wife  of  Anu;  Davkina, 
the  wife  of  Hoa;  Shala,  the  wife  of  \'ul;  Zir- 


banit,  the  wife  of  Merodach;  Laz,  the  wife 
of  Nergal;  and  Warmita,  usually  called  the 
wife  of  Nebo,  did  not  occupy  a  place  in  the 
Assyrian  pantheon  at  all  in  comparison  with 
the  dignity  and  rank  of  their  hu.sbauds. 
Nin,  the  Assyrian  Hercules,  and  Sin,  the 
Moon-god,  had  wives  also;  but  their  proper 
names  are  not  known,  Nin's  wife  being 
called  "the  Queen  of  the  Land,"  and  vSin's 
wife  "the  Great  Lady." 

Thus  the  Assj-rians  usually  combined  in 
the  same  temple  the  worship  of  the  male 
and  the  female  principle;  the  female  deities — 
with  the  exception  of  Beltis,  the  wife  of  Bel; 
Gula,  the  wife  of  Shamas;  and  Ishtar,  either 
as  an  independent  goddess  or  as  the  wife  of 
Nebo,  who  are  as  strong  and  distinct  as  their 
husbands — are  in  most  cases  only  the  reflec- 
tion of  their  husbands,  thus  having  an  un- 
substantial charaifter,  and  occupj-ing  a  very 
insignificant  position  in  the  pantheon.  Some 
minor  goddesses,  among  whom  was  Telita, 
the  goddess  of  the  great  marshes  near  Baby- 
lon, stood  alone,  unassociated  with  any  male 
deity.  Most  of  the  minor  male  divinities 
likewise  had  no  female  companions,  the 
notable  exceptions  to  this  rule  being  Martu, 
whose  wife  was  called  ' '  the  Lady  of  Tig- 
ganna,"  and  Idak,  God  of  the  Tigris,  whose 
wife  was  Belat-Muk. 

Prominent  among  the  minor  male  divini- 
ties were  Martu,  called  a  son  of  Anu  and  "the 
Minister  of  the  deep, ' '  and  corresponding  to 
the  Greek  Erebus;  Sargana,  also  ranked  as 
a  son  of  Anu,  and  from  whom  Sargon  is 
supposed  to  have  derived  his  name;  Idak, 
God  of  the  Tigris;  Supulat,  Lord  of  the 
Euphrates;  and  II,  who,  though  the  Baby- 
lonian chief  god,  occupied  an  humble  position 
in  the  A.ssyrian  pantheon.  Tiglath-Pileser 
I.  repaired  a  temple  to  II  at  Asshur  about 
B.  C.  1150.  Besides  these  just  mentioned, 
there  were  a  nuiltitude  of  minor  Assyrian 
divinities,  of  whom  but  ven,-  little  is  yet 
known. 

The  A.ssyrians  are  supposed  to  have  be- 
lieved in  the  existence  of  genii,  .some  of 
whom  they  considered  powers  of  good, 
others  powers  of  evil.  The  winged  figure 
wearing  the  horned  caj),  usually  represented 


RliLICION. 


227 


as  waiting  upon  the  kiiis^  when  he  is  en- 
gaged in  any  sacred  capacity,  is  heHeved  to 
be  his  tutehiry  genius,  the  spirit  carefully 
watching  o\'er  him  and  proteifling  him  from 
the  s])irits  of  darkness.  This  figure  gener- 
all>'  carries  a  pomegranate  or  a  pine-cone 
in  the  right  hand,  and  sometimes  holds  a 
plaited  bag  or  basket  in  the  left,  while  at 
other  times  this  hand  is  free.  The  pine- 
cone,  when  carried,  is  always  pointed 
towards  the  king,  as  if  signifying  the  means 
of  communication  between  the  protedtor 
and  the  protected,  the  instrument  conveying 
grace  and  strength  from  the  genius  to  the 
human  being  whom  he  had  taken  under  his 
care.  The  sacred  basket  is  often  very  ele- 
ganth-  and  elaborately  ornamented,  some- 
times with  winged  figures  in  adoration  be- 
fore the  sacred  tree,  and  the^-  themselves 
holding  baskets.  The  hawk-headed  figure, 
also  found  attending  upon  the  king  and 
watching  his  acflions,  is  likewise  believed  to 
cepresent  a  good  genius. 


-Ni.iKocn  lii-.i-oui':  TiiH  sv-MLui.ic  Tkhi;. 

As  Seen  in  Sargou's  Great  Palace. 

Few  representations  of  evil  genii  have 
been  discovered.  Among  these  is  the  mon- 
ster— half  lion,  half  eagle,  driven  into  re- 
treat bj-  Vul's  thunderbolts — found  among 
the  sculptures  at  Nimrud,  the  ancient  Ca- 
lah.  Certain  grotesque  statuettes  found  at 
Khorsabad,  representing  a  human  figure 
having  a  lion's  head  with  the  ears  of  an  ass, 
have  likewise  been  classed  with  these  evil 
genii.  In  one  case  we  see  two  monsters 
with  heads  like  the  one  ju.st  described, 
placed  on  human  bodies  whose  legs  end  in 
eagle's   claws,    both    armed   with    daggers 


and  maces,  and  struggling  with  each  other. 
This  sculpture — found  in  the  ruins  of  As- 
shur-bani-pal's  great  palace  at  Nineveh,  and 
now  in  the  Briti.sh  Museum — is  believed  to 
be  a  symbolical  illustration  of  the  tendency 
of  evil  to  turn  iqion  itself  and  waste  its 
strength  by  internal  contention  and  tur- 
moil. Instances  are  abundant  in  which  a 
human  figure  with  the  head  of  a  hawk  or 
an  eagle  threatens  a  winged  man-headed 
lion,  the  emblem  of  Nergal,  with  a  strap  or 
a  mace;  thus  typifying  the  spirit  of  evil  at- 
tacking a  god,  or  the  hawk-headed  genius 
driving  Nergal  out  of  Assyria — an  emble- 
matic representation  of  war. 

The  Assyrian  religion  had  a  strongly- 
idolatrous  character  in  its  mode  of  worship. 
The  different  images  of  the  same  deity  came 
to  be  regarded  as  separate  objects  of  worship 
in  their  different  temples;  and  thus  we  find 
the  Ishtar  of  Arbela,  the  Ishtar  of  Nineveh, 
and  the  Ishtar  of  Bab}-lon  invoked  by  the 
same  monarch  in  the  same  inscription  as 
separate  divinities.  The  identifica- 
tion of  the  god  with  the  image  is  ex- 
emplified in  the  great  Inscription  of 
Tiglath-Pileser  I.,  where  the  king 
\  Ijoasts  that  he  set  up  Ann  and  Vul  in 
their  places,  and  where  he  constantly 
identifies  the  images  which  he  car- 
ries O0"  from  foreign  lands  with  their 
gods.  In  the  same  spirit  Sennach- 
erib inquires,  through  Rabshakeh : 
"  Where  are  the  gods  of  Hamath  and 
of  Arpad  ?  Where  are  the  gods  of 
vSepharvaim,  Hena  and  Ivah  ? ' '  The 
meaning  of  these  interrogatory-  ex- 
pressions is  that  the  gods  of  those  foreign 
lands  had  been  carried  captive  to  Assyria 
when  their  idols  were  conveyed  there. 
When  Hezekiah,  King  of  Judah,  had  de- 
stroyed all  the  images  throughout  his  do- 
minions Sennacherib  thought  that  monarch 
had  deprived  his  subjeifls  of  all  divine  pro- 
tedlion.  The  usual  Assyrian  custom  of 
carrying  off"  the  idols  of  foreign  countries 
was  designed  to  weaken  the  enemies  of  As- 
syria by  depriving  them  of  their  divine  pro- 
tedlors.  The.se  idols  were  not  removed  in 
an  irreverent  or  sacrilegious  manner,   and 


228 


A  NCI  EN  T  HIS  TOR  Y.—A  SS  )  'RIA . 


were  deposited  in  the  chief  Assyrian  tem- 
ples, so  that  these  gods  wonld  thereafter  be 
among  the  celestial  guardians  of  the  As- 
syrians. 

Assyrian  idols  were  made  from  stone, 
baked  clay  or  metal.  Some  images  of  Nebo 
and  of  Ishtar  have  been  found  among  the 
ruins.  Those  of  Nebo  are  standing  figures 
somewhat  larger  than  the  human  size.  They 
show  the  marks  of  the  ravages  of  time,  and, 
like  many  of  the  winged  man-headed  lions 
and  bulls,  are  disfigured  by  several  lines  of 
cuneiform  inscriptions,  stating  the  fadl  that 
the  statues  represent  Nebo,  and  relating  the 
circumstances  of  their  dedication. 

The  few  clay  idols  found  are  usually  of 
good  material  and  of  different  sizes,  smaller 
than  the  full  human  stature,  but  are  com- 
monly mere  statuettes  less  than  a  foot  high. 
These  statuettes  are  believed  to  have  been 
mostly  intended  for  private  use  among  the 
people  in  general,  while  the  stone  idols  were 
designed  for  public  worship  in  the  shrines 
and  temples.  Idols  in  metal  have  not  been 
found  among  the  Assyrian  remains,  but  a 
passage  from  the  Hebrew  prophet  Nahum 
indicates  that  the  A.ssyrians  had  images 
made  of  that  material  in  their  temples.  In 
alluding  to  Nineveh,  Nahum  .says:  "And 
the  L,ord  hath  given  a  commandment  con- 
cerning thee,  that  no  more  of  thy  name  be 
sown  ;  out  of  the  house  of  thy  gods  will  I  cut 
off  the  graven  image  and  the  molten  image. ' ' 

The  Assyrian  method  of  worship  consisted 
mainly  of  sacrifices  and  offerings.  Tiglath- 
Pileser  I.  states  in  his  long  Inscription  that 
he  offered  sacrifices  to  Ann  and  Vul  when  he 
had  finished  repairing  their  temple.  Asshur- 
izir-pal  states  that  he  sacrificed  to  the  gods 
after  having  embarked  on  the  Mediterra- 
nean. VuMush  III.  sacrificed  to  Merodach, 
Nebo  and  Nergal  in  their  respedtive  tem- 
ples at  Babylon,  Borsippa  and  Cutha.  Sen- 
nacherib offered  sacrifices  to  Hoa  on  the  sea- 
shore after  his  expedition  in  the  Persian 
Gulf  against  Susiana.  Esar-haddon  "slew 
great  and  costly  sacrifices"  at  Nineveh  when 
he  had  fini.shed  his  great  palace  in  that  city. 
The  Assyrian  monarchs  in  general  consid- 
ered sacrifice  a  duty,  and  this  was  the  usual 


method  by  which  they  propitiated  the  favor 
of  the  national  deities. 

The  bas-reliefs  give  us  scant  information 
concerning  the  manner  of  the  Assyrian  sac- 
rifices, but  they  show  that  the  animal  spe- 
cially sacrificed  was  the  bull.  The  inscrip- 
tions inform  us  that  sheep  and  goats  were 
likewise  used  for  sacrifice,  and  there  is  a 
representation  of  a  ram  or  wild  goat  being 
led  to  the  altar.  On  Lord  Aberdeen's  Black 
Stone,  a  monument  of  Esar-haddon's  reign, 
a  bull  is  represented  as  brought  up  to  a 
temple  by  the  king.  On  a  nuitilated  obe- 
li.sk  of  Asshur-bani-pal's  time,  now  in  the 
British  Museum,  the  whole  sacrificial  scene 
is  presented  to  our  view.  The  king  and 
six  priests,  one  of  whom  carries  a  cup,  while 
the  other  five  are  employed  about  the  sacri- 
ficial animal,  advance  in  procession  towards 
the  front  of  the  temple,  where  the  god  with 
the  honied  cap  on  his  head  occupies  a 
throne,  while  a  beardless  attendant  priest  is 
paying  adoration  to  him.  The  king  pours 
a  libation  over  a  large  bowl,  fixed  in  a  stand, 
just  in  front  of  a  tall  fire-altar,  from  which 
flames  arise.  The  priest  stands  close  behind 
with  a  cup  in  his  hand.  The  bull's  advance 
is  stayed  by  a  bearded  priest  just  in  front  of 
the  animal.  Two  priests  walk  behind  the 
bull  and  hold  him  with  a  rope  fastened  to 
one  of  his  front  legs  near  the  hoof.  These 
two  priests  and  two  others  behind  them  ap- 
pear, from  the  position  of  their  heads  and 
arms,  to  be  engaged  in  a  solemn  chant.  The 
flame  on  the  altar  indicates  that  the  sacrifice 
is  to  be  burned  upon  that  altar,  which  is  only 
large  enough  to  buni  a  part  of  the  animal 
at  a  time. 

Assyrian  altars  differed  in  fonn  and  size. 
Some  were  square  and  not  high,  with  the 
top  ornamented  with  gradines,  below  which 
the  sides  were  plain  or  fluted.  Others  about 
the  same  height  were  triangular,  with  a 
round  top  consisting  of  a  plain  flat  stone, 
sometimes  inscribed  round  the  edge.  An 
altar  of  this  form  was  di.scovered  by  M. 
Botta  at  Khorsabad.  •  Another  of  almost 
the  same  shape  was  found  by  Mr.  Layard  at 
Nimrud,  and  is  now  in  the  British  Museum. 
A  third  kind  of  altar  resembled  a  portable 


RELIGION. 


229 


stand,  narrow  hnt  rcacliinj;  up  to  a  man's 
head.  These  kinds  of  altars  the  Assyrians 
carried  al)out  in  their  expeditions,  and  in 
the  entrenched  camps  priests  are  sometimes 
seen  officiating  at  them  in  their  sacerdotal 
costume. 

The  Assyrian  kings  deposited  in  the  tem- 
ples of  their  gods,  as  thank-offerings,  many 
precious  produces  from  the  countries  which 
they  invaded  with  their  annies.  \'arious 
kinds  of  stones  or  marbles,  rare  metals  and 
images  of  foreign  deities,  are  specially  named 
in  the  Tiglath-Pileser  Inscription  as  among 
such  offerings.  Sih'er  and  gold — so  largely 
employed  in  the  adonunent  of  temples  that 
the)-  were  .said  to  have  been  sometimes  "as 
splendid  as  the  sun  " — were  thus  dedicated 
to  the  gods. 

The  sculptures,  mostly  monuments  erected 
by  the  kings,  represent  their  own  religious 
performances,  but  not  those  of  the  people. 
The  Assyrian  kings  thus  exercised  priestly 
funcflions,  and  in  the  religious  scenes  which 
illustrate  their  a(fts  of  worship  no  priest  is 
repre.sented  as  inter\-ening  between  the  king 
and  the  god,  but  all  priests  occupj'  a  very  un- 
important position.  The  king  himself  stands 
and  worships  near  the  holy  tree,  pours  out  li- 
bations with  his  own  hands,  and  may  himself 
have  slain  victims  for  sacrifice.  As  the  Baby- 
lonians and  all  other  Oriental  nations  had 
their  priesthoods,  it  is  likewise  probable  that 
the  religious  affairs  of  the  Assyrian  people 
were  conducted  under  the  auspices  of  their 
priests,  whom  the  cylinders  represent  as  in- 
troducing worshipers  to  the  gods,  and  who 
are  attired  in  long  robes  and  wearing  mitres 
upon  their  heads.  The  worshiper  is  usually 
represented  as  carr\-ing  an  antelope  or  a 
young  goat,  intended  to  propitiate  the  deity. 
The  Assyrian  sculptures  generally  represent 
the  priests  without  beards. 

At  the  Assyrian  festivals  great  multitudes, 
particular!}'  of  the  chief  men,  assembled; 
many  sacrifices  were  offered,  and  the  festivi- 
ties continued  several  days.  Manj-  of  the 
worshipers  were  afforded  accommodations 
in  the  royal  palace,  to  which  the  temple  was 
commonly  only  an  addition,  and  were  fed  at 
the  monarch's  expense  and  given  lodging  in 


the  halls  and  other  apartments.  The  As- 
syrian religion  also  embraced  fasting,  as  at- 
tested exclusively  by  the  Book  of  Jonah. 
When  a  fast  was  proclaimed,  the  king,  the 
nobles  and  the  people  attired  themselves  in 
sackcloth,  sprinkled  ashes  upon  their  heads, 
and    abstained    from    eating   and    drinking 


until  the  fast  was  ended.  The  animals 
within  the  walls  of  the  cit>-  where  the  fast 
was  ordered  were  also  robed  in  sackcloth, 
and  were  likewise  denied  food  and  drink. 
Business  was  su.spended,  and  the  entire  pop- 
ulace iniited  in  prayer  to  A.sshur,  "the  Great 
Lord, "thus  imploring  his  pardon  and  seek- 


23° 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASSYRIA. 


ing  to  propitiate  his  favor.  These  were  not 
simply  formal  ceremonies.  On  the  occasion 
alluded  to  in  the  Book  of  Jonah,  the  repent- 
ance of  the  Ninevites  appears  to  have  been 
sincere.  Says  this  authority:  "God  saw 
their  works,  that  the>-  turned  from  their  evil 
way  ;  and  God  repented  of  the  evil  that  he 
said  he  would  do  unto  them;  and  he  did  it 
not." 

Altogether  the  Assyrians  were  a  strongly- 
religious  people,  although  not  as  intensely 
.so  as  the  Egyptians.  Their  temples,  however, 
were  subordinated  to  their  palaces,  and  the 
most  imposing  emblems  of  their  gods,  such 
as  the  winged  man-headed  bulls  and  lions, 
symbolizing  respecftively  Nin  and  Nergal, 
were  degraded  to  mere  architeeflural  orna- 
ments. Their  religion  was  very^  gross  and 
sensuous  in  its  nature,  and  its  intensely-mate- 
rialistic chara(fter  is  attested  by  the  pradlice 
of  image-worship.  The  Assyrians  worshiped 
more  by  means  of  sacrifices  and  offerings 
than  b}'  prayer,  though  in  times  of  distress 
and  misfortune  they  could  offer  prayers  of 
the  deepest  sincerit)',  which  goes  to  prove 
that  tliev  were  adluated  h\  honest  motives 


and  purposes  concerning  their  numerous  .sol- 
emn addresses  and  invocations,  as  read  in 
their  public  and  private  documents.  The 
devotion  of  the  learned  to  religious  subjetfts 
is  shown  by  the  many  mythological  tablets; 
and  the  pietj-  of  the  masses  is  indicated  by 
the  general  chara(5ter  of  their  names,  and  by 
the  almost  universal  custom  of  inscribing 
sacred  figures  and  symbols  upon  their  signets 
The  sensuous  nature  of  the  religion  con- 
sequently led  to  an  ostentatious  ceremonial, 
a  taste  for  pompous  processions,  and  the  use 
of  gorgeous  vestments ;  the  last  being  very 
elaborately  represented  in  the  Nimrud  sculp- 
tures. The  costume  of  the  priests  was  mag- 
nificent, their  robes  being  elegantly  em- 
broidered, mostly  with  religious  figures  and 
emblems,  .such  as  the  winged  circle,  the 
pine-cone,  the  pomegranate,  the  .sacred  tree, 
the  winged  man-headed  lion,  etc.  The  of- 
ficiating priests  wore  armlets,  bracelets, 
necklaces  and  ear-rings;  and  their  heads 
were  encircled  with  an  elegantly-adorned 
fillet,  or  covered  with  a  mitre  or  a  showy  cap. 
In  the  religious  processions  the  musicians 
performed  an  imposing  part. 


CHIEF    DEITIES    OF    THE    ASSYRIANS. 


GODS. 

CORRESPONDING   GODDESSES. 

chief  seat  of  worship. 

ASSHUR    .... 

Sheruha     

Throughout  the  Knipire. 

H  Q  f  Anu     .    . 

S:S    BEL.  .  . 

Eg  Ihoa     .   . 

Anuta  

Beltis  (Mylitta) 

Dav-Kina 

Asshur. 

Asshur  and  Calah. 

Asshur  and  Calah. 

go  (Sin  .    .    . 
P  S  \  Shamas . 
w  g  i  VUL .   .    . 

"The  Great  Lady"    .... 

GULA 

Calah  and  Dur-Sargina. 

Dur-Sargina. 

NiN 

■\TkroD\CH 

"The  Queen  of  the  Land." 
Zir-Banit       

Calah  and  Nineveh. 

Tarbisi. 
Calah. 

Nergal  .... 
Nebo 

Laz 

Warmita  and  Ishtar  .... 

CHAPTER    IV. 


THE    MEDIAN    EMPIRE. 


SECTION    I.— GEOGRAPHY    OF    MEDIA. 


i]EDIA  occupied  an  extensive  re- 
gion south  and  south-west  of 
the  Caspian  Sea,  east  of  Ar- 
menia and  A.ssj'ria,  north  of 
Persia  proper,  and  west  of  the 
great  salt  desert  and  Parthia.  It  was  about 
six  hundred  miles  in  extent  from  north  to 
south,  and  about  two  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  from  east  to  west;  thus  ha\-ing  an  area 
of  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
.square  miles,  a  greater  extent  than  Assyria 
and  Clialdaea  combined.  It  occupied  a  tracl 
in  one  solid  mass,  "with  no  straggling  or 
outh'ing  portions ;  and  it  is  stronglj-  de- 
fended on  almost  everj-  side  by  natural  bar- 
riers offering  great  difficulties  to  an  invader. ' ' 
The  Median  territory  comprises  two  re- 
gions— the  northern  and  western  portion 
being  a  mountain  distridl  embracing  a  series 
of  lofty  ridges;  and  the  southern  and  east- 
em  section  forming  a  part  of  the  great  pla- 
teau of  Iran,  extending  southward  to  the  i 
Indian  Ocean,  embracing  all  of  ancient  Per- 
sia and  Carmania,  the  latter  being  the  mod- 
em Kerman,  while  eastward  this  extensive 
table-land  is  bounded  by  the  modem  Af-  i 
ghanistan.  The  average  elevation  of  the 
territory  occupied  by  ancient  Media  is  about 
three  thousand  feet  above  the  le\el  of  the  [ 
sea.  I 

The  western  part  of  the  moinitain  re- 
gion of  Media  was  ancienth-  called  the  Za- 
gros,  and  is  part  of  the  modem  Kurdistan 
and  Luristan.  It  is  thus  spoken  of:  "Full 
of  torrents,  of  deep  ravines,  of  rocky  sum- 
mits, abrupt  and  almost  inaccessible ;  con-  | 
taining  but  few  pas.ses,  and  those  narrow 
and    easily    defensible:    secure,     moreover,   i 

(  23 


owing  to  the  rigor  of  its  climate,  from  hos- 
tile invasion  for  more  than  half  the  year,  it 
has  defied  all  attempts  to  effect  its  perma- 
nent subjugation,  whether  made  by  the  As- 
sj-rians,  Persians,  Greeks,  Parthians,  or 
Turks,  and  remains  to  this  da)-  as  indepen- 
dent of  the  great  powers  in  its  neighborhood, 
as  it  was  when  the  Assyrian  armies  first 
penetrated  its  recesses.  Nature  seems  to 
have  construcfted  it  to  be  a  nursery  of  hardy 
and  vigorous  men,  a  stumbling-block  to 
conquerors,  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  everj' 
powerful  empire  which  arises  in  this  part  of 
the  great  Eastern  continent." 

The  northem  part  of  the  mountain  region 
is  called  Elburz,  and  contains  the  lofty, 
snow-covered  peak  of  Demavend,  which 
overlooks  Teheran,  the  present  capital  of 
Persia,  and  is  the  highest  portion  of  Asia 
west  of  the  great  Himalaya  mountain  chain. 
The  Elburz  region  is  not  as  well  watered 
as  the  Zagros  district,  its  streams  being 
small,  frequently  dr\-  in  summer,  and  ab- 
sorbed by  the  Caspian  Sea,  which  bounds  the 
region  on  the  north. 

' '  The  elevated  plateau  which  stretches 
from  the  foot  of  these  two  mountain  regions 
to  the  south  and  east,  is  for  the  most  part  a 
flat,  sandj-  desert,  incapable  of  sustaining 
more  than  a  sparse  and  scantj'  population. 
The  northem  and  western  portions  are,  how- 
ever, less  arid  than  the  east  and  south,  be- 
ing watered  for  some  distance  by  the  streams 
that  descend  fr-om  Zagros  and  Elburz,  aud 
deriving  fertility  also  from  the  spring  rains. 
Some  of  the  rivers  which  flow  from  Zagros 
on  this  side  are  large  and  strong.  One,  the 
Kizil-Uzen,  reaches  the  Caspian.  Another, 
I)    • 


232 


ANCIENT  HIST'ORY.— MEDIA. 


the  Zenderud,  fertilizes  a  large  districft  near 
Isfahan.  A  third,  the  Bendamir,  flows  by 
Persepolis  and  terminates  in  a  sheet  of  water 
of  some  size — Lake  Bakhtigan.  A  tra(5t 
thus  intervenes  between  the  mountain  re- 
gions and  the  desert,  which,  though  it  can- 
not be  called  fertile,  is  fairly  produdlive,  and 
can  support  a  large  settled  population.  This 
forms  the  chief  portion  of  the  region  which 
the  ancients  called  Media." 

Media  was  mainly  a  sterile  country,  and 
had  an  attra<5live  appearance  only  in  spring. 
In  the  mountain  region  the  climate  is  severe. 
On  the  plateau  it  is  more  temperate,  but  the 
thermometer  does  not  often  reach  ninety  de- 
grees in  the  shade.  All  in  all,  the  climate 
is  considered  healthy.  With  the  aid  of  irri- 
gation the  great  table-land  yields  ' '  good 
crops  of  grain,  rice,  wheat,  barle}'.  Indian 
corn,  doiira,  millet  and  sesame.  It  will  like- 
wise produce  cotton,  tobacco,  saffron,  rhu- 
barb, madder,  poppies  which  give  a  good 
opium,  senna  and  asafoetida.  Its  garden 
vegetables  are  excellent,  and  include  pota- 
toes, cabbages,  lentils,  kidney-beans,  peas, 
turnips,  carrots,  spinnach,  beet-root  and  cu- 
cumbers." 

Media  produced  various  valuable  minerals. 
Many  different  kinds  of  stone  are  yet  found 
throughout  the  countr>-,  chief  of  which  is 
the  beautiful  Tabriz  marble.  Iron,  copper 
and  native  steel  are  still  mined.  Gold  and 
silver  were  found  in  the  mountains  in  ancient 
times.  Sulphur,  alum  and  gypsum  are 
found  in  different  portions  of  the  country, 
and  salt  likewise  exists  in  abundant  quan- 
tities. 

The  wild  animals  of  Media  were  the  lion, 
the  tiger,  the  leopard,  the  bear,  the  beaver, 
the  jackal,  the  wolf,  the  wild  ass,  the  ibex, 
or  wild  goat,  the  wild  sheep,  the  stag,  the 
antelope,  the  wild  boar,  the  fox,  the  hare, 
the  rabbit,  the  ferret,  the  rat,  the  jerboa,  the 
porcupine,  the  mole  and  the  mannot.  The 
domestic  animals  were  the  camel,  the  horse, 
the  mule,  the  ass,  the  cow,  the  goat,  the 
sheep,  the  buffalo,  the  dog  and  the  cat. 

The  .southern  part  of  Media,  or  Media 
proper,  was  called  Media  Magna  ;  while  the 
northern,    or    mountainous,     portion     was 


known  as  Media  Atropatene.  The  capital 
and  metropolis  of  each  of  these  divisions  was 
a  city  called  Ecbatana.  Next  to  the  two 
Ecbatanas  were  Rhages,  Bagistan,  Adrapan, 
Aspadan  and  a  few  other  cities. 

The  southern  Ecbatana,  or  Agbatana — 
the  capital  and  metropolis  of  Media  Magna — 
was  called  Hagmatan  by  the  Medes  and 
Persians  themselves;  and,  according  to 
Polyhistor  and  Diodorus,  was  situated  on  a 
plain  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Orontes,  a  little 
west  of  the  Zagros  range.  The  notices  of 
these  writers  and  those  of  Eratosthenes,  Isi- 
dore, Pliny,  Arrian  and  others,  would  imply 
that  the  site  of  this  famous  city  was  that  of 
the  modern  town  of  Hamadan,  the  name  of 
which  is  a  slight  corruption  of  the  ancient 
name  as  known  by  the  Medes  and  Persians. 
Mount  Orontes  has  been  identified  as  the 
modern  Ellwend,  or  Erwend,  a  long  and  lofty 
mountain  connedled  with  the  Zagros  range, 
and  surrounded  with  fertile  plains  famed  for 
their  rich  and  abundant  vegetation  and  their 
dense  gjoves  of  forest  trees  with  their  luxu- 
riant foliage.  Hamadan  lies  at  the  foot  of 
this  mountain. 

Ecbatana  was  mainly  renowned  for  its 
magnificent  royal  palace,  which  Diodorus 
a.scribed  to  Semiramis.  Polybius  assigned 
the  edifice  a  circumference  of  seven  stadia, 
or  1420  yards,  a  little  over  four-fifths  of  an 
English  mile.  The  latter  writer  also  spoke 
of  two  classes  of  pillars,  those  of  the  main 
buildings  and  those  which  skirted  the  courts, 
thus  implying  that  the  courts  were  sur- 
rounded with  colonnades.  These  wooden 
pillars,  either  of  cedar  or  cypress,  supported 
beams  of  the  same  wood  crossing  each  other 
at  right  angles,  leaving  square  spaces  be- 
tween, which  were  then  filled  in  with  wood- 
work. Above  the  whole  was  a  roof  sloping 
at  an  angle  and  composed  of  silver  plates  in 
the  shape  of  tiles.  The  pillars,  beams  and 
the  other  wood-work  were  also  lined  with  a 
thin  coating  of  gold  and  other  precious 
metals.  Herodotus  described  an  edifice 
which  he  called  "the  palace  of  Deioces," 
but  this  is  believed  to  apply  to  the  northern 
Ecbatana.  Polybius  saj^s  that  Ecbatana 
was  an  unwalled  city  in  his  time,  which  was 


GEOCRAI'IIY. 


233 


ill  the  second  century  before  Christ.  The 
Medes  and  Persians  did  not  generally  sur- 
round their  cities  with  walls,  l)einji  satisfied 
with  establishing  in  each  town  a  fortified 
citadel  or  stronghold,  around  which  the 
houses  were  clustered.  Ecbatana  therefore 
never  withstood  a  siege,  and  alwaj-s  sub- 
mitted to  a  conquering  foe  without  resistance. 
The  description  in  the  Apocryphal  Book  of 
Judith — which,  contradicted  by  e^■er>^  other 
evidence,  is  purely  mythical — represents 
Ecbatana  as  having  walls  of  hewn  stone 
nine  feet  long  and  four  and  a  half  feet  wide; 
the  walls  being  one  hundred  and  five  feet 
high  and  seventy-five  feet  wide,  the  gates 
of  the  same  altitude,  and  the  towers  over 
the  gates  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high. 

The  chief  city  of  Media  Atropatene  was  the 
northern  Ecbatana,  which  the  Greeks  some- 
times mistook  for  the  southern  metropolis 
and  the  real  capital  of  Media,  and  which  in 
later  times  was  known  as  Gaza,  Gazaca, 
Canzaca,  or  Vera.  The  description  of  Ec- 
batana accords  with  the  remains  of  a  cit)- 
in  Azerbijan,  and  not  with  the  local  fea- 
tures of  the  site  of  Hamadan;  and  a  city  in 
this  region  was  called  by  Moses  of  Chorene 
"the  second  Ecbatana,  the  seven-walled 
town. ' '  This  cit}-  was  located  on  and  about 
a  conical  hill  sloping  gently  down  from  its 
summit  to  its  base,  interposed  bj-  seven  cir- 
cuits of  wall  between  the  plain  and  the  crest 
of  the  hill.  The  royal  palace  and  the  treas- 
uries were  at  the  top  of  the  hill,  within  the 
innermost  circle  of  the  defenses;  while  the 
fortifications  were  on  the  sides,  and  the 
dwellings  and  other  edifices  of  the  city  were 
at  the  base  of  the  hill,  outside  the  circuit  of 
the  outermost  wall.  Herodotus  states  that 
the  battlements  crowning  the  walls  were 
differently  colored ;  those  of  the  outer  being 
white,  the  next  black,  the  third  scarlet,  the 
fourth  blue,  the  fifth  orange,  the  sixth  sil- 
ver, and  the  seventh  gold.  This  gave  the 
citadel  towering  above  the  town  seven  dis- 
tindl  rows  of  colors.  The  city  thus  de- 
scribed by  Herodotus  coincides  with  the 
ruins  at  the  modeni  town  of  Takht-i-Sulei- 
man,  in  the  upper  vallej-  of  the  Saruk,  a 
tributary  of  the  Jaghetu;  and  this  is  believed 
1— 15.-U.  H. 


to  be  the  site  of  the  ancient  northern  Ec- 
batana, though  only  one  wall  can  now  be 
traced. 

Rhages,  the  Median  city  next  in  impor- 
tance to  the  two  Ecbatanas,  was  .situated 
near  the  Ca.spian  Gates,  near  the  eastern  ex- 
tremity of  the  Median  territory.  It  is  men- 
tioned in  the  Zend-Avesta  among  the  primi- 
tive An,an  settlements,  and  in  the  Rooks  of 
Tobit  and  Judith.  In  the  Behistun  In.scrip- 
tion,  Darius  Hysta.spes,  the  great  Persian 
king,  mentioned  it  as  the  .scene  of  the  clos- 
ing struggle  of  the  great  Median  revolt. 
Darius  Codomannus,  the  last  Persian  king, 
sent  thither  his  heavy  baggage  and  the  ladies 
of  his  court  when  he  determined  to  leave 
Ecbatana  and  flee  eastward  after  his  final 
defeat  by  Alexander  the  Great.  The  site 
of  this  ancient  city  has  sometimes  been 
identified  with  the  ruins  of  a  town  called 
Rhei,  or  Rhey,  though  this  is  uncertain. 

In  the  same  vicinity,  perhaps  on  the  site 
of  the  present  ruins  known  as  Uewanukif, 
was  the  Median  city  of  Charax.  The  cities 
of  Bagistan,  Adrapan,  Concobar  and  Aspa- 
dan,    were   in    the   western  part  of  Media. 

Bagistan  is  de.scribed  hy  Isidore  as  "a  city 
situated  on  a  hill,  where  there  was  a  pillar 
and  a  statue  of  Semiramis. ' '  Diodorus  gives 
an  account  of  the  arrival  of  Semiramis  at 
the  place ;  of  a  royal  park  being  establi.shed 
by  her  in  the  plain  below  the  mountain, 
\\hich  was  watered  by  an  abundant  spring; 
of  the  face  of  the  rock  of  the  lofty  precipice 
on  the  side  of  the  mountain,  and  of  her 
car\ing  her  own  effigy  on  the  surface  of  this 
rock  with  an  Assyrian  cuneiform  inscription. 
This  ancient  city  has  been  identified  with 
the  celebrated  Behistun,  where  the  plain, 
the  fountain,  the  precipitous  rock  and  the 
scraped  surface  are  yet  to  be  seen;  though 
the  suppo.sed  figure  of  Semiramis,  her  pillar 
and  her  inscription  are  not  visible.  The 
Assyrian,  Persian  and  Parthian  monarchs 
made  this  rock  renowned  by  giving  it  the 
sculptures  and  inscriptions  which  showed 
them  to  have  been  the  successive  lords  of 
Western  Asia  during  a  period  of  a  thousand 
years.  The  great  inscription  of  Darius 
Hj-staspes  at  this  place  has  already  been  al- 


234 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— MEDIA. 


luded  to.  The  Parthian  Gotarzes  inscribed 
on  this  famous  rock  a  record  of  his  viclorj- 
over  his  rival  Meherdates. 

Adrapan  was  mentioned  by  Isidore  as  be- 
ing situated  between  Bagistan  and  Ecbatana, 
at  the  distance  of  twelve  schoeni — thirty- 
six  Roman,  or  thirty-four  Engli.sh  miles — 
from  the  latter  cit}-.  He  described  it  as  the 
site  of  an  ancient  city  destroyed  by  Tigranes 
the  Armenian.  This  place  has  been  iden- 
tified with  the  modern  village  of  Arteman, 
on  the  southern  face  of  Elwend,  near  its  base. 
Sir  Henn,-  Rawlinson  sa3^s  of  this  place  that 
' '  during  the  .se\'erest  winter,  when  Hamadan 
and  the  surrounding  country  are  buried  in 
snow,  a  warm  and  sunny  climate  is  to  be 
found;  whilst  in  the  summer  a  thousand 
rills  descending  from  Elwend  diffuse  around 
fertility  and  fragrance."  Professor  George 
Rawlinson,  in  describing  the  same  place, 
says:  '  'Groves  of  trees  grow  up  in  rich  luxu- 
riance from  the  well-irrigated  soil,  whose 
thick  foliage  affords  a  welcome  shelter  from 


the  heat  of  the  noonda}'  sun.  The  climate, 
the  gardens,  and  the  manifold  bles.sings  of 
the  place  are  proverbial  throughout  Persia, 
and  naturally  caused  the  choice  of  the  site 
for  a  retired  palace,  to  which  the  court  of 
Ecbatana  might  adjourn  when  either  the 
summer  heat  and  dust,  or  the  winter  cold, 
made  residence  iu  the  capital  irksome." 

Concobar  was  in  the  vicinity  of  Adrapan, 
on  the  road  leading  to  Bagistan,  and  is  be- 
lieved to  be  the  modern  Kungawar.  It  is 
also  supposed  to  be  the  place  called  Chavon 
by  Diodonis,  where  he  says  that  Semiramis 
built  a  palace  and  laid  out  a  paradi.se.  Isi- 
dore says  that  a  famous  temple  to  Artemis 
was  at  this  place.  Colossal  ruins  crown  the 
sinnmit  of  the  acclivitj-  on  which  Kungawar 
is  situated. 

The  Median  town  of  Aspadan — mentioned 
by  Ptolemy — has  been  identified  as  the 
famous  modern  Persian  city  of  Isfahan,  the 
great  capital  of  the  Suffee  Kings  of  Persia 
several  centuries  ago. 


SECTION    II.— POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


|HE  origin  of  the  Medes  is  in- 
A'olved  in  impenetrable  ob- 
scurity. They  were  of  Aryan 
||k^^^^^1^  I  descent,  and  were  a  kindred 
people  with  their  southern 
neighbors,  the  Persians,  from  whom  they 
differed  but  little  in  race,  language,  institu- 
tions and  religion.  From  the  little  that  we 
know  of  their  primitive  historj-  it  appears  that 
they  were  an  important  tribe  in  verj'  early 
times.  The  Book  of  Genesis  mentions  them 
under  the  name  of  Madai,  and  Berosus 
States  that  they  furni.shed  a  dynasty  to 
Babylon  at  a  period  anterior  to  B.  C.  2000. 
These  circtnustances  would  seem  to  show 
that  the  Medes  were  a  powerful  j)rime\-al 
race,  and  adlually  constituted  a  ruling  power 
in  We.stern  Asia  as  early  as  the  twenty-third 
century  before  Christ — long  before  Abraham 
migrated  from  Ur  to  Harran. 

Recent    linguistic   research   has   satisfac- 


torily shown  that  'Ci\&  Arba  Lisini,  or  "Four 
Tongues,"  of  ancient  Chaldaea,  so  frequently 
mentioned  on  the  ancient  monuments,  in- 
cluded an  Arj-an  formation,  thus  confirming 
Berosus' s  account  of  an  Ar>-an  conquest  of 
Chaldsea  B.  C.  2286.  There  are  other  evi- 
dences of  the  early  spread  of  the  Median 
race,  thus  implying  that  tliey  were  a  great 
nation  in  Western  Asia  long  prior  to  the 
date  of  the  Ar>-an,  or  Iranic,  movements  in 
Bacftria  and  adjacent  regions.  Scattered 
remnants  of  a  great  migratory  host,  which 
issued  from  the  mountains  east  of  the  Tigris 
and  dispersed  itself  over  the  regions  to  the 
north  and  north-west  in  prehistoric  times, 
are  plainly  visible  in  such  races  as  the  Mat- 
ieni  of  Zagros  and  Cappadocia,  the  Sauro- 
matae  (or  Northern  Medes)  of  the  country 
between  the  Palus  Maeotis  and  the  Caspian 
Sea,  the  Maetteor  Masotse  of  the  tracft  about 
the  mouth  of  the   Don,  and    the    Maedi  of 


Pi.  V.  /  /■/(  ■.  /  r.  HIS  Ti  Vv' ) : 


235 


Thrace.  ^V  Iribe  mentioned  1)>-  Herodotus — 
the  Sigynna.'  in  the  region  between  the 
Danube  and  the  Adriatic — claimed  to  be  of 
Median  descent,  and  this  chiim  was  sub- 
stantiated by  the  resemblance  of  their  na- 
tional dress  to  that  of  the  Medes.  Hero- 
dotus, in  relating  these  facts,  remarks  that 
' '  nothing  is  impossible  in  the  long  lapse  of 
ages. ' ' 

Two  Greek  legends  designated  the  Medes 
under  the  two  eponyms  of  Media  and  Andro- 
meda, and  refer  to  a  period  anterior  to  the 
age  of  Homer — no  later  than  B.  C.  1000. 
The.se  legends  connecfl  the  Medes  with  Syria 
and  Colchis — two  countries  remote  from  each 
other — thus  showing  that  the  fame  of  the 
Medes  was  great  in  that  part  of  Asia  known 
to  the  Greeks.  From  the.se  obsen'ations  it 
would  seem  that  the  Medes  must  have  been 
as  great  and  powerful  a  people  in  primitive 
times  as  they  became  in  the  period  of  the 
decline  and  fall  of  Assyria.  We  po.ssess  no 
distindl  historical  knowledge  of  the  first 
period  of  Median  greatness,  the  only  traces 
of  early  Median  preponderance  being  found 
in  ethnological  names  and  mythological 
speculations.  Recent  discoveries  show  that 
the  Median  dynasty  which  governed  Chal- 
dsea  from  B.  C.  2286  to  B.  C.  2052  was  a 
Susianian,  or  Elamite,  race  of  kings. 

The  histor}'  of  the  Medes  as  a  nation  be- 
gins in  the  latter  half  of  the  ninth  century 
before  Christ.  The  Assyrian  monarch, 
Shalmaneser  H.,  the  Black  Obelisk  king, 
states  that  in  the  twenty-fourth  year  of  his 
reign,  B.  C.  835,  after  conquering  the  Zimri 
of  the  Zagros  mountain  region  and  reduc- 
ing the  Persians  to  tribute,  he  invaded  Media 
Magna,  which  he  plundered  after  ravaging 
the  country  with  fire  and  sword.  The 
Medes  were  then  divided  into  many  tribes 
ruled  b)'  petty  chieftains,  and  were  thus  a 
weak  and  insignificant  people. 

The  time  of  this  first  As.syrian  attack  on 
Media,  when  Assyria  was  in  her  prime,  and 
Media  was  only  emerging  from  weakness 
and  obscurity,  was  tlie  period  which  Ctesias 
assigned  to  the  fall  of  As.sj-ria  and  the  ri.se 
of  Media.  The  account  of  Ctesias  regard- 
ing this  fadt  was  accepted  until  the  recent 


discoveries  of  the  native  Assyrian  records 
showed  the  untrustworthiness  of  his  chro- 
nology. 

The  Assyrian  king,  Shamas-V'ul  H.,  the 
son  and  successor  of  Shalmaneser  II.,  al.so 
invaded  Media  and  devastated  the  country 
with  fire  and  sword.  Shamas-X'ul's  .son  and 
successor,  Vul-lush  III.,  reduced  the  Medes 
to  tribute.  Towards  the  end  of  the  ninth 
centur>'  before  Christ  the  Medes  agreed  to 
pay  an  annual  tribute  to  exempt  their  coun- 
try from  ravage. 

A  century  later,  about  B.  C.  710,  the  great 
Assyrian  king,  Sargon,  invaded  Media  with 
a  large  army,  overran  the  countrj-,  seized 
several  towns  and  ' '  annexed  them  to  As- 
syria, "  and  also  established  a  number  of 
fortified  posts  in  portions  of  the  countrj-. 
A  standing  army  was  stationed  in  these 
posts  to  overawe  the  inhabitants  and  to  pre- 
vent them  from  making  an  effectual  resist- 
ance to  the  arms  of  the  Assyrians.  With 
the  same  end  in  view  wholesale  deportations 
were  resorted  to,  many  of  the  Medes  being 
colonized  in  other  portions  of  the  Assyrian 
Empire,  while  Samaritan  captives  were  set- 
tled in  the  Median  cities.  Bj-  waj-  of  tribute 
the  Medes  were  required  to  furnish  annually 
a  number  of  horses  to  the  Assyrian  rojal 
stud. 

As  Ctesias' s  account  of  the  Median  revolt 
under  Arbaces  and  the  conquest  of  Nineveh 
synchronizes  almost  with  the  first  known 
A.ssj'rian  ravages  in  Media,  so  Herodotus' s 
account  of  the  revolt  of  the  Medes  under 
Deioces  corresponds  with  the  date  assigned 
by  the  Assyrian  records  for  the  complete 
Assyrian  subjugation  of  Media. 

After  Sargon' s  conquest  of  Media  Magna 
the  Medes  of  that  region  quietly  submit- 
ted to  Assyrian  domination  for  almost 
three-fourths  of  a  centun,-.  During  this 
period  the  Ass>'rian  supremacy  was  extended 
over  the  more  remote  Median  tribes,  particu- 
larly those  of  Azerbijan.  Sennacherib 
boasted  that  in  the  beginning  of  his  reign 
(B.  C.  702)  he  received  an  embassj-  from  the 
more  distant  portions  of  Media — "parts  of 
which  the  kings  his  fathers  had  not  even 
heard" — which   brought    him    presents   in 


236 


ANCIEjVT   history. — MEDIA. 


token  of  submission,  and  willingly  accepted 
his  yoke.  Sennacherib's  son,  Esar-haddon, 
stated  that  about  his  tenth  year  (B.  C.  671) 
he  invaded  Bikni,  or  Bikan,  a  remote  Median 
province— "whereof  the  kings  his  fathers 
had  never  heard  the  name  " — and  compelled 
-the  cities  of  this  region  to  acknowledge  his 
dominion.  The  numerous  petty  indepen- 
dent chiefs  who  ruled  the  cities  of  this  terri- 
tory, according  to  Esar-haddon's  account, 
submitted  to  his  arms  and  agreed  to  pay 
tribute,  after  he  had  carried  two  of  them 
captive  to  Assyria,  and  Assyrian  officers 
were  admitted  into  their  cities. 

The  Median  kings  according  to  Cte.sias, 
beginning  with  Arbaces,  are  regarded  by 
modem  writers  as  fidlitious  personages,  as  is 
also  the  Deioces  at  the  head  of  the  list  ac- 
cording to  Herodotus.  The  following  is  a 
table  of  the  Median  kings  according  to  these 
two  Greek  writers: 


MEDIAN  KINGS  ACCORDING  TO  CTESIAS. 


Arbaces  . 
Maudaces 
sosarmus  . 
Artycas  . 
Arbianes  . 
Art.€us  .  . 
Artynes  . 
Astibaras 


28  years. 

50  " 

30  " 

50  ■' 

22  " 

40  ■' 

22  " 

40  " 


MEDIAN  KINGS  ACCORDING 
HERODOTUS. 


TO 


Interregnum 
Deioces  .  .  . 
Interregnum 
Deioces  .  .  . 
Phraortes  .  . 
Cvaxares  .  . 
Phraortes  .  . 
Cyax.\res     .   . 


53  years. 


53 
22 
40 
22 
40 


As  the  time  assigned  by  Herodotus  to  the 
reign  of  Deioces,  whom  he  represents  as  the 
founder  of  a  centralized  monarchy  in  Media, 
is  the  very  period  during  which  Sargon  of 
Assyria  was  establishing  fortified  posts  in 
the  country  and  .settling  his  Israelite  cap- 
tives in  the  "cities  of  the  Medes" — and  as 
the  alleged  reign  of  Deioces  according  to 
Herodotus  .synchronizes  with  the  brilliant 
A.ssyrian  reigns  of  Sargon,  Sennacherib, 
Esar-haddon  and  Asshur-bani-pal — it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  whole  story  of  Deioces  is 
purely  mythical,  as  bis  name  is  not  men- 


tioned in  the  contemporary  annals  of  As- 
syria, according  to  which  the  Medes  were 
still  a  w-eak,  disorganized  and  divided  peo- 
ple. Even  as  late  as  B.  C.  671  Esar-haddon 
is  said  to  have  subdued  the  more  distant 
Medes,  whom  he  still  found  inider  the  gov- 
ernment of  many  petty  chiefs.  According 
to  the  e\-idence  furnished  us  by  modem  in- 
vestigation and  discovery',  a  consolidated 
monarchy  could  not  have  been  organized  in 
Media  before  B.  C.  660,  almost  a  half  cen- 
tur\-  sub.sequent  to  the  time  a.ssigned  by 
Herodotus. 

The  sudden  development  of  national 
power  and  the  rise  of  a  centralized  monarchy 
in  Media  were  owing  to  the  recent  Aryan 
migrations  from  the  regions  east  and  south- 
east of  the  Caspian  sea.  Cvaxares,  who 
about  B.  C.  632  conducfted  a  Median  expe- 
dition against  Nineveh,  was  known  to  the 
Aryan  tribes  of  the  North-east,  and  in  the 
reign  of  the  great  Persian  king,  Darius 
Hystaspes,  a  Sagartian  headed  a  revolt  in 
that  region,  claiming  the  Sagartian  throne 
as  a  descendant  from  Cyaxares.  It  is  sup- 
posed that  Cyaxares  and  his  father,  the 
Phraortes  of  Herodotus,  condu(5led  fresh 
Aryan  migrations  from  Batlria  and  Sagartia 
to  Media,  thus  augmenting  the  strength 
of  the  Aryan  race  in  the  region  just  east 
of  the  Zagros  range,  and  laying  the  founda- 
tions of  a  powerful  consolidated  kingdom  in 
that  mountain  land.  Accepted  by  the  Aryan 
Medes  as  their  chief,  Cyaxares  reduced  the 
scattered  Scythic  tribes  who  occupied  the 
high  mountain  region,  and  subdued  the 
Zimri,  the  Minni,  the  Hupuska  and  other 
small  nations  occupying  the  territory  between 
Media  Magna  and  Assyria. 

Thus  Cyaxares  is  generally  regarded  as 
the  founder  of  the  great  Median  Empire;  and 
Phraortes,  whom  Herodotus  represents  as 
the  second  King  of  Media  and  as  the  father 
of  Cyaxares,  is  believed  to  be  a  fabulous 
personage.  The  testimony  of  ^sclnlus 
and  the  Behistun  Inscription  both  make 
Cyaxares  the  founder  of  the  Median  mon- 
archy. 

No  .sooner  did  Cyaxares  find  hini.self  at 
the  head  of  a  powerful  centralized  monarchy, 


POLITIC  A  I.    HIS  T(  Vv' )  ■ 


237 


and  free  from  all  danger  of  Assyrian  cou- 
(juesl,  than  he  meditated  the  bold  enterprise 
of  attacking  the  colossal  power  wliich  had 
for  almost  seven  centuries  swayed  the  desti- 
nies of  Western  Asia.  The  last  great  As- 
syrian king,  Asshur-bani-pal,  was  now  in 
his  old  age,  and  his  declining  vigor  and 
energy  afforded  encouragement  to  the  am- 
bitious designs  of  the  warlike  Median  mon- 
arch. Therefore  about  B.  C.  634,  when 
Cyaxares  had  reigned  thiry-four  years,  the 
Medes  suddenly  issued  from  the  passes  of 
the  Zagros  and  overran  the  fertile  plains  of 
Assyria  at  the  base  of  the  mountains.  The 
Assyrian  monarch,  in  great  alarm,  placed 
himself  at  the  head  of  his  troops  and  took 
the  field  against  the  invaders.  The  Medes 
were  thoronghlj'  defeated  in  a  great  battle, 
their  army  being  entirely  cut  to  pieces,  and 
the  father  of  Cyaxares  being  among  the 
slain. 

Thus  the  first  Median  attack  on  Asssyria 
ended  in  complete  disaster.  The  Medes  had 
overrated  their  militarj-  strength.  Although 
they  had  already  proven  themselves  a  match 
for  the  Assyrians  while  acting  on  the  defeu- 
si\-e  in  their  mountain  fastnesses,  thej-  could 
not  withstand  their  enemy  in  the  open  plain 
while  assuming  the  aggressive.  Cyaxares 
abandoned  the  struggle  until  his  troops  could 
be  properly  disciplined  to  prevail  against  the 
armed  hosts  of  A.ssyria.  He  at  once  .set  about 
organizing  his  army  into  several  distinct 
corps,  consisting  respedlively  of  infantn,'  and 
cavalry,  of  archers,  slingers  and  lancers. 
Feeling  himself  able  to  cope  with  the  As- 
syrians, Cyaxares  renewed  the  war  and  led 
a  large  anny  into  Assj-ria,  signally  defeating 
the  troops  of  Asshur-bani-pal  and  forcing 
them  to  seek  refuge  behind  the  defenses  of 
Nineveh.  The  victorious  Median  king  pur- 
sued the  fleeing  Assyrian  hosts  to  the  very 
walls  of  their  capital,  which  he  at  once  be- 
sieged, but  he  was  soon  recalled  to  the  de- 
fense of  his  own  land  by  the  terrible  Scythian 
inundation  which  .swept  ruin  and  devastation 
over  both  Assyria  and  Media. 

The  Scythians,  as  we  have  noticed  in  the 
history  of  Assyria,  occupied  the  vast  plains 
north  of  the  Euxine  (now  Black  Sea),  the 


Caucasus  mountains,  the  Caspian  sea.  and 
the  Jaxartes,  or  vSihon  river.  Their  charac- 
teristics have  been  described  in  our  account 
of  their  invasion  of  Assyria.  After  pouring 
over  the  Caucasus,  the  Scyths  attacked  the 
Medes  under  Cyaxares  as  they  were  return- 
ing from  the  siege  of  Nineveh  to  defend 
their  own  country  from  the  barbarous  hordes 
of  the  North.  The  Medes  and  the  Scyths 
were  fully  matched,  each  being  hardy,  war- 
like, adlive  and  energetic,  and  each  having 
the  cavalry  as  its  chief  arm  and  the  bow  as  its 
chief  weapon.  The  Medes  were  doubtless 
the  better  disciplined.  They  had  more  of  a 
variety  of  weapons  and  soldiers,  and  were 
personally  the  more  powerful.  But  the 
Scythians  were  by  far  the  more  numerous, 
besides  being  recklessly  brave  and  masters 
of  tactics  which  made  them  well-nigh  irre- 
sistible. The  Scyths  had  overrun  Western 
Asia  to  plunder  and  ravage.  Madyes,  the 
Scythian  leader,  defeated  Cj-axares  and 
forced  him  to  accept  the  suzerainty  of  the 
Scyths  and  to  pa)-  an  annual  tribute.  The 
Scythian  invaders  continued  to  levy  contri- 
butions upon  the  conquered  people  and  op- 
pressed them  with  repeated  exadlions. 
Spreading  over  all  Western  Asia  the  Scythic 
invaders  carried  plunder,  devastation  and 
massacre  wherever  they  went. 

The  brave  and  patriotic  Medes,  with  the 
love  of  independence  so  characteristic  of 
mountaineers,  and  inspired  with  pride  by 
their  sudden  rise  and  their  great  success  in 
Assyria,  took  advantage  of  the  gradual 
weakening  of  the  barbarians,  who  were  con- 
stantly dispersing  their  hosts  over  Assyria, 
Mesopotamia,  Sjria,  Palestine,  Armenia  and 
Cappadocia,  plundering  and  marauding 
ever>-where  and  settling  nowhere,  conduct- 
ing sieges  and  fighting  battles,  while  their 
numbers  were  by  degrees  reduced  b>-  the 
sword,  by  sickness  and  excesses.  Still  fear- 
ing to  encounter  the  Scyths  in  open  battle, 
the  Median  king  and  his  court  invited  the 
Scythian  chiefs  to  a  grand  banquet,  and, 
after  making  them  helplessly  intoxicated, 
remorselesslj'  massacred  them. 

The  Medes  at  once  flew  to  anns  and  at- 
tacked their  Scythian  oppressors  with  a  fury 


238 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  )  '.—MEDIA. 


intensified  by  years  of  repression.  Nothing 
is  known  of  the  duration  and  circumstances 
of  the  war  which  ensued,  and  the  stories  of 
Ctesias  concerning  it  are  utterly  without 
credit.  He  says  that  the  Parthians  united 
with  their  Scythian  kinsmen,  and  that  the 
war  continued  many  years,  numerous  battles 
being  fought  with  heavy  losses  on  both  sides, 
and  the  struggle  ending  without  any  de- 
cisive result.  This  fanciful  writer  also  states 
that  the  Sc}-ths  were  led  by  a  queen  of  great 
beauty  and  Ijraver)'  named  Zarina,  or  Zari- 
naea,  who  won  the  hearts  of  her  foes  when 
unable  to  withstand  their  arms. 

A  singularly-romantic  love  storj'  is  related 
concerning  this  beautiful  Amazon.  She 
was  said  to  be  the  wife  of  Marmareus,  the 
Scythian  king,  and  to  have  gone  with  him  to 
the  field,  participating  in  all  his  battles.  Being 
at  one  time  wounded  she  was  in  danger  of 
being  taken  prisoner  by  Stryangaeus,  son-in- 
law  of  the  Median  king,  and  only  escaped 
by  earnestly  imploring  Str\'ang£eus  to  permit 
her  to  go.  When  Strj'angseus  was  shortly 
afterwards  made  prisoner  by  Marmareus  and 
threatened  with  death  by  his  captor,  Zarina 
interceded  for  him,  and  when  her  entreaties 
failed  she  murdered  her  husband  in  order  to 
save  her  preserver's  life.  By  this  time  Strj'- 
angaeus  and  Zarina  were  in  lo\-e  with  each 
other;  and  peace  having  been  arranged  be- 
tween the  Scythsand  the  Medes,  Str>-angseus 
visited  Zarina  at  her  court  and  was  received 
with  hospitality;  but  when  he  revealed  the 
secret  of  his  love  Zarina  repulsed  him,  re- 
minding him  of  his  wife,  Rhastaea,  who  was 
famed  as  being  more  laeautiful  than  herself, 
and  entreating  him  to  exhibit  sufficient  man- 
hood by  conquering  an  improper  passion. 
Thereupon  Stryangseus  retired  to  his  cham- 
ber and  conunitted  suicide,  after  having 
written  to  reproach  Zarina  with  being  the 
cause  of  his  death. 

Ctesias  mentions  Zarina's  capital  as  a 
town  named  Roxanace,  which  is  unknown 
to  any  other  historian  or  geographer.  The 
same  writer  mentions  Zarina  as  having 
founded  other  towns.  He  says  that  the  tomb 
of  Zarina  was  a  triangular  pyramid,  six  hun- 
dred feet  high  and  more  than  a  mile  around 


tlie  base,  crowned  with  a  gigantic  figure  of 
the  queen  construcfted  from  solid  gold.  This 
strudture  is  represented  as  being  the  prin- 
cipal architedtural  monument  of  Zarina's 
capital. 

But,  casting  aside  these  fabulous  stories 
by  Ctesias,  we  only  know  that  the  war 
ended  in  the  utter  discomfiture  of  the  Scyth- 
ians, who  were  driven  from  Media  and  the 
neighboring  coinitries  across  the  Caucasus 
into  their  own  homeland.  The  only  ves- 
tiges which  they  left  behind  were  the  names 
of  the  Palestinian  citj'  of  Scythopolis  and  the 
Annenian  province  of  Sacassene. 

Herodotus  assigned  the  duration  of  the 
Scythian  supremacy  over  Western  Asia  a 
period  of  twenty-eight  5'ears  from  their  de- 
feat of  Cyaxares  to  his  treacherous  massacre 
of  their  chiefs.  But  the  chronolog\'  of  He- 
rodotus is  disputed  by  modern  writers, 
many  of  whom  give  the  j^ear  B.  C.  625  as 
the  date  of  the  fall  of  Nineveh.  Accord- 
ing to  Herodotus  that  event  would  have 
occurred  B.  C.  602.  The  belief  that  625  is 
the  proper  date  rests  upon  the  statement  of 
Abydenus  and  Polyhistor,  who  conne(5t  the 
fall  of  Nineveh  with  the  accession  of  Nabo- 
polassar  at  Bab\lon,  which  event  the  Canon 
of  Ptolemy  fixes  at  B.  C.  625.  Besides,  the 
Lydian  war  of  Cyaxares,  which  took  place 
between  B.  C.  615  and  610,  must  have  oc- 
curred after  the  fall  of  Nineveh.  Eusebius 
gives  B.  C.  618  as  the  year  of  the  destru<5lion 
of  Nineveh,  and  assigns  a  much  shorter 
period  to  the  Scythian  domination  over 
Western  Asia  than  twenty-eight  years;  and 
his  view  is  to  be  preferred  to  that  of  Herod- 
otus. It  is  more  likely  that  the  twenty- 
eight  years  covered  the  entire  period  from 
the  time  of  this  first  Scythian  attack  on 
Media  to  the  final  expulsion  of  the  Scyths 
from  Western  Asia.  The  weakness  of  As- 
syria and  the  exhaustion  of  her  resources 
after  the  Scythian  inroad  encouraged  Cyax- 
ares to  renew  his  attack  on  Nineveh,  which 
lay  apparently  at  the  mercy  of  any  bold 
enemy  ready  to  assail  her.  The  gigantic 
power  which  had  so  long  dominated  Western 
Asia  had  thus  fallen  into  decay;  her  prestige 
was  gone,  her  glory  had  departed,  her  army 


POL  I TICA  L    HIS  ri )  A' ) ' 


239 


had  lost  its  spirit  and  organization,  her  de- 
fenses had  been  weakened,  her  haughty 
spirit  had  been  broken. 

While  Cyaxares  and  his  Medes  were 
marching  against  Nineveh  from  the  east, 
the  Susianians  rose  in  revolt  and  advanced 
against  Assj-ria  from  the  south.  The  last 
Assyrian  king,  Asshur-emid-iliu,  or  Saracus, 
with  a  portion  of  his  army  prepared  to  de- 
fend his  capital  against  the  Medes,  and  .sent 
another  portion  under  his  general,  Nabo- 
polassar,  to  check  the  advance  of  the 
Susianians  from  the  south.  But  Nabopo- 
lassar,  as  already  related,  betrayed  his  mas- 
ter and  led  a  revolt  of  the  Babylonians 
against  the  A.ssyrian  king.  He  at  once  sent 
an  embassy  to  the  Median  king,  and  the  re- 
sult was  the  close  alliance  between  Cyaxares 
and  Nabopolassar,  cemented  b)-  the  marriage 
of  the  daughter  of  Cyaxares  with  Nabopo- 
lassar's  son  Nebuchadnezzar,  as  also  before 
noted.  The  united  annies  of  the  Medes  and 
the  Babylonians  besieged  Nineveh,  which 
they  finally  took  and  destroyed.  The  fabu- 
lous account  of  this  siege  as  narrated  by 
Ctesias  has  been  given  in  our  account  of 
Assyria,  to  which  the  reader  is  referred  for 
its  details.  Ctesias  called  the  Assyrian 
king  Sardanapalus,  the  Median  commander 
Arbaces,  and  the  Babylonian  Belesis.  The 
self-immolation  of  the  last  Assyrian  king, 
as  related  by  Ctesias,  is,  however,  confirmed 
by  Abydenus  and  Berosus;  and  the  story  of 
Saracus  peri.shing  in  his  palace  in  a  funeral 
pyre  lighted  with  his  own  hand  maj-  there- 
fore be  accepted  without  question. 

The  conquerors  divided  the  Assyrian  Em- 
pire between  them,  Cyaxares  obtaining  As- 
syria proper  and  all  the  provinces  to  the 
north  and  north-west,  while  Nabopolassar 
obtained  Babylonia,  Susiana,  Upper  Meso- 
potamia, Syria,  Phoenicia  and  Palestine. 
Thus  two  great  empires — the  Median  and  the 
Babylonian — arose  out  of  the  ashes  of  the 
Assyrian.  The.se  empires  were  founded  by 
mutual  consent,  and  were  united  in  friend- 
ship and  alliance  by  treaties  and  by  a  royal 
intermarriage.  In  all  emergencies  they  were 
ready  to  give  each  other  important  aid. 
Thus   once  in   the    historj-  of  the   ancient 


world  two  powerful  monarchies  stood  beside 
each  other  in  peace,  and  without  jealousy 
or  hatred.  Media  and  Babylonia  were  con- 
tent with  sharing  the  dominion  of  Western 
Asia  between  them,  and,  considering  the 
world  large  enough  for  both,  they  remained 
fast  friends  and  allies  for  more  than  half  a 
centurj". 

The  overthrow  of  Assyria  did  not  bring 
repose  to  the  Median  king.  Roving  bands 
of  Scyths  still  ravaged  Western  Asia;  while 
the  vassal  states  of  Assyria,  released  from 
her  yoke  by  her  downfall,  made  use  of  the 
occasion  to  assert  their  independence;  but 
they  were  soon  reminded  that  a  new  master, 
as  powerful  and  aggressive  as  the  one  from 
which  they  had  been  freed,  had  arisen  to 
claim  as  her  inheritance  the  suzerainty'  of 
the  vassal  states  of  the  fallen  Assyrian  Em- 
pire. Cyaxares,  encouraged  by  his  succes.ses, 
was  stimulated  to  fresh  conquests.  Herod- 
otus briefly  tells  us  that  Cyaxares  "sub- 
dued to  him.self  all  Asia  above  the  Halys.  " 
This  would  imply  the  conquest  of  the  coun- 
tries between  Media  and  Assyria  on  the  east 
and  the  river  Halys  on  the  west,  which 
would  include  Armenia  and  Cappadocia. 
For  centuries  had  Armenia,  strong  in  its 
lofty  mountains,  its  deep  gorges  and  its 
many  rapid  rivers — the  sources  of  the  Ti- 
gris, the  Euphrates,  the  Kur  and  the  Aras 
— withstood  all  efforts  at  conquest  by  the 
Assyrian  kings,  and  had  only  agreed  to  a 
nominal  dependence  upon  Assyria  during 
the  reign  of  the  last  great  Assyrian  king. 
Cappadocia  had  not  even  been  subjecfl  to 
Assyria  in  name,  and  had  not  thus  far  come 
into  collision  with  any  great  Asiatic  power. 
Other  tribes  of  this  region — neighbors  of 
the  Armenians  and  Cappadocians,  but  more 
remote  from  Media — were  the  Iberians,  the 
Colchians,  the  Moschians,  the  Tibarenians, 
the  Mares,  the  Macrones  and  the  Mosynce- 
cians ;  and  were,  according  to  Herodotus, 
conquered  by  Cyaxares,  who  thus  extended 
his  dominions  to  the  Caucasus  and  the  Eu.x- 
ine,  or  Black  Sea,  upon  the  north,  and  to  the 
Halys  river  upon  the  west.  But  it  is  likely 
that  the  terrible  Scythian  ravages  in  Arme- 
nia and  Cappadocia  had  made  the  inhabi- 


240 


ANCIENT   HISrORY.  — MEDIA. 


tants  of  those  countries  willing  to  accept 
the  suzerainty  of  the  powerful  and  civilized 
Medes,  as  the  various  tribes  and  nations  of 
Asia  Minor  accepted  the  yoke  of  the  power- 
ful Kings  of  Lydia. 

Contemporaneously  with  the  great  Aryan 
migration  from  the  East  under  Cyaxares,  or 
his  father,  Phraortes,  an  Aryan  wave  swept 
over  Armenia  and  Cappadocia,  which  had 
previously  been  under  the  supremacy  of 
Turanian  tribes.  In  Armenia  the  present 
Aryan  language  supplanted  the  former  Tu- 
ranian in  the  seventh  centur>-  before  Christ, 
as  shown  by  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  of 
Van  and  its  ^-icinity.  In  Cappadocia  the 
Moschians  and  Tibarenians  were  forced  to 
yield  their  habitations  to  a  Medo-Persian 
tribe  called  Katapatuka.  This  spread  of 
Ar\an  nations  into  the  region  between  the 
Caspian  Sea  and  the  Halys  prepared  the 
waj^  for  Media's  supremacy  over  this  part 
of  Western  Asia,  as  Cyaxares  was  welcomed 
by  the  Aryan  immigrants,  who  joined  his 
standard  in  the  wars  against  the  barbarous 
Scyths  and  the  old  Turanian  aborigines  of 
these  countries.  The  last  remnants  of  the 
Scyths  were  expelled;  and  within  less  than 
ten  years  from  the  overthrow  of  Assyria, 
Cyaxares  enlarged  the  Median  Empire  with 
the  addition  of  the  fertile  and  valuable 
tradls  of  Armenia  and  Cappadocia — coun- 
tries never  really  subjecl  to  Assyria — and 
also  the  entire  region  between  Armenia  and 
the  Caucasus,  and  between  the  Caspian  and 
Euxine  seas. 

The  advance  of  the  Median  Empire  west- 
ward to  the  Halys,  involving  the  absorp- 
tion of  Cappadocia,  brought  the  Medes  in 
collision  with  Lydia,  a  new  power  in  Asia 
Minor,  which,  like  Media,  had  suddenly  risen 
to  greatness.  Lydia  headed  a  confederacy 
of  all  the  nations  of  Asia  Minor  west  of  the 
Halys  to  resist  the  further  progress  of  the 
Median  power  westward.  Cyaxares  ob- 
tained as.sistance  from  his  old  allj',  Nabo- 
polassar  of  Babylon,  against  the  Lydians. 
With  a  large  army  the  Median  king  invaded 
Asia  Minor,  and,  according  to  Herodotus, 
fought  many  battles  with  the  Lydians  with 
various  success.      After  the   war  had  con- 


tinued six  years  it  was  brought  to  an  end  by 
a  remarkable  circumstance.     On   a   certain 
occasion,  as  the  Median  and  Lydian  armies 
were  engaged  in  battle,  a  sudden  darkness 
enveloped  the  combatants  and  filled  them 
with     superstitious    awe.       The    sun    was 
eclipsed,  and  the  two  armies,  ceasing  from 
the  struggle,   gazed   with   dread   upon  the 
celestial  phenomenon.      Amid  the   general 
alarm,  we  are  told,  a  desire  for  peace  seized 
both  armies.     Two  chiefs,  the  foremost  allies 
on  their  respedlive  sides,  improved  the  occa- 
sion to  induce  the  warring  monarchs — Cyax- 
ares of  Media  and  Alyattes  of   Lydia — to 
sheathe  their  swords.     Herodotus  says  that 
Syennesis,   King   of  Cilicia,  as  the  ally  of 
the  Lj'dian  king,  and  Labynetus  of  Baby- 
lon, probably  either  Nabopolassar  or  Nebu- 
chadnezzar, as  the  ally  of  the  Median  mon- 
arch, came  to  propose  an  immediate  suspen- 
,sion  of  hostilities;  and  when  this  propo.sal 
was  accepted  a  treat}^  of  peace  was  arranged, 
B.  C.  610.     Both  parties  retained  the  terri- 
tories they  had  respedlively  held  before  the 
war,  so  that  the  treaty  left   ever>'thing  in 
status  quo.     The  Kings  of  Media  and  Lydia 
agreed  to  .swear  a  friendship,  and  to  cement 
the    alliance   Alyattes    agreed   to   give   his 
daughter  in  marriage  to  Astyages,  the  son 
of  Cyaxares.     In  accordance  with  the  bar- 
barous customs  of  the   time  and  place,  the 
two  kings,  having  met  and  repeated  the  words 
of  the  formula,  puniflured  their  own  arms, 
and  then  .sealed  their  contracft  by  each  suck- 
ing a   part  of  the   blood   from    the  other's 
wound. 

By  this  peace  the  three  great  Asiatic  em- 
pires of  the  time — Media,  Lydia  and  Baby- 
lonia— became  fast  friends  and  allies,  and 
stood  side  b\-  side  in  peace  for  fifty  years, 
until  each  was  in  turn  ab.sorbed  in  the  great 
Medo-Persian  Empire,  which  for  several  cen- 
turies held  sway  o\-er  all  Western  Asia  and 
Egypt.  The  crown-princes  of  Media,  Lydia 
and  Babylonia  were  placed  on  terms  of  blood 
relationship,  and  "had  become  brothers." 
Thus  all  Western  A.sia,  from  the  shores  of 
the  ^gean  on  the  west  to  the  Persian  Gulf 
on  the  east,  was  now  ruled  by  dynasties 
united  by  intermarriages,  bound  to  respecl 


POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


241 


each  otlier's  rights  and  animated  by  a  spirit 
of  mutual  friendliness  and   genuine  attach- 
ment.     After  more   than   five   centuries   of 
perpetual  war  and   ravage,  after  fifty  years 
of  strife  and  bloodshed,  during  which  the 
venerable  monarch\-  of  Assyria,  which  for 
seven  centuries  had  ruled  Western  Asia  at 
her  will,  had  gone  to  pieces,  and  the  new 
Median  and  Bab>lonian  Empires  had  taken 
her  place,  that  quarter  of  the  globe  entered 
upon   a   period  of  repose   which  contrasted 
strongly   with   the  previous  long  period  of 
almost   constant    struggle.      Media,    Lydia 
and    Babylonia,   as  fast   friends  and    allies, 
pursued  their  separate  courses  without  <[uar- 
rel  or  collision,  thus   allowing  the  naticms 
under  their  respective  dominions  a  repose 
which  they  greatly  needed  and  desired. 

According  to  Herodotus,    Cyaxares,    the 
founder  of  the  great  Median  Empire,  died 
B.  C.  593,  after  a  reign  of  forty  years,  and 
was  succeeded  by  his  son,  AsTVAGES,  who, 
as  we  have  ob,served,  had  received  as  a  bride 
the  daughter  of  Alyattes,   King  of  Lydia. 
Cyaxares,  as  a  great  warrior  and  the  founder 
of  an   empire,   was   a   conqueror   after   the 
Asiatic   model.     He  possessed  ability,  per- 
severance, energ\',   ambition,   and   force    of 
character,  and   these  qualities  made  him  a 
successful  leader.      He  was  faithful  to  his 
friends,  but  considered  treachery  permissible 
to  his  foes.     He  did  not,  however,  possess 
the  ability-  to  organize  the  empire  his  con- 
quests had  built  up;  and  his  establishment 
of  Magianism  as  the  state  religion  was  the 
only  one  of  his  institutions  that  appeared  to 
be  laid  on  deep  and  stable  foundations.    The 
empire  which  he  founded  was  the  shortest- 
lived  of  all  the  great  ancient  Oriental  mon- 
archies, having  risen  and  fallen  within  the 
short  space  of  threescore  years  and  ten — the 
period  allotted  by  the  Psalmist  as  the  natural 
lifetime  of  an  individual. 

Astj'ages  lacked  his  father's  ability  and 
energy-.  Boni  to  the  inheritance  of  a  great 
empire,  and  bred  in  the  luxur\-  of  a  mag- 
nificent Oriental  court,  he  was  apparently 
content  with  the  lot  which  fortune  seemed 
to  have  assigned  him,  and  had  no  further 
ambition.     He  was  said  to  have  been  hand- 


some, cautious,  and  of  an  ea.sy  and  generous 
temper;  but   the   anecdotes  of  his  manner 
of  living  at  Ecbatana,  as   related   by   He- 
rodotus,   Xenophon    and    Nicolas    of    Da- 
mascus, are  mainly  legendary  and  therefore 
unreliable  as  material  for  history.     vStill  the 
united    testimony    of    these    three    writers 
gi\-es  us  some  idea  of  the  court  of  Asty- 
ages,  which  resembled  that  of  the  Assyrian 
kings    in    its   main    features.     The   Median 
monarch    led    a    secluded    life,    and    could 
only  be  seen  by  those  who  asked  and  ob- 
tained an  audience.      He   was   surrounded 
by  guards  and  eunuchs,  the  latter  holding 
most  of  the  offices  about  the  royal  person. 
The  court  of  Ecbatana  was  celebrated  for  the 
magnificence  of  its  apparel,  for  its  banquets 
and  for  the  number  and  organization  of  its 
attendants.     The  courtiers  wore   long  flow- 
ing robes  of  various  colors,  red  and  purple 
predominating,    and    adorned    their    necks 
with  gold  chains  or  collars,  and  their  wrists 
with  bracelets  of  the  same  costly  material. 
Their  horses  frequently  had  golden  bits  to 
their  bridles.     One  royal  officer  was  called 
"the  King's  Eye;"  another  was   assigned 
the  privilege  of  introducing  strangers  to  the 
sovereign  ;    a   third    was   his   cupbearer ;  a 
fourth  his  messenger.     Guards,  torch-bear- 
ers, serving-men,  ushers  and  sweepers  were 
among  the  lower  attendants.      "The  king's 
table-companions"   were  a  privileged  class 
of  courtiers  of  the  highest  rank.     Hunting 
was  the  chief  pastime  in  which  the  court  in- 
dulged.    This  usually  took  place  in  a  park, 
or  "paradise,"  near  the  capital;  but  some- 
times the  king  and  court   went  out   on    a 
grand  hunt  in  the  open  countni',  where  lions, 
leopards,  bears,  wild  boars,  wild  as.ses,   an- 
telopes, stags  and  wild  sheep  abounded,  and 
when  the  beaters  had  driven  the  beasts  into 
a   confined  space,  the  hunting   parties  dis- 
patched them  with  arrows  and  spears. 

Herodotus  tells  us  that  the  priestly  caste 
of  the  Magi,  who  were  held  in  the  highest 
esteem  by  both  king  and  people,  were  in  con- 
stant attendance  at  the  Median  court,  ready 
to  expound  dreams  and  omens,  and  to  give 
advice  on  all  matters  of  state  policy.  They 
had  charge  of  the  religious  ceremonial,  and 


\ 


242 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— MEDIA. 


often  held  high  offices  of  state.  They  were 
the  only  class  who  possessed  auj'  real  influ- 
ence over  the  monarch. 

The  long  reign  of  Astyages  was  mainly 
peaceful  until  near  its  close.  Eusebius  con- 
tradicfts  Herodotus  by  saying  that  Astyages, 
and  not  Cyaxares,  conducfted  the  great  war 
with  Alyattes  of  Lydia;  and  Moses  of 
Chorene  alone  states  that  Astyages  carried 
on  a  long  struggle  with  Tigranes,  an  Arme- 
nian king — neither  of  which  statements  de- 
serve any  credit.  The  Greeks  evidently  re- 
garded Astj^ages  as  an  unwarlike  king.  On 
the  north-eastern  frontier  of  his  empire,  Asty- 
ages extended  his  dominion  by  the  acquisi- 
tion of  the  low  country'  now  called  Talish 
and  Ghilan,  where  the  powerful  tribe  of  the 
Cadusians  had  thus  far  maintained  its  inde- 
pendence. Diodorus  alone  states  that  they 
were  able  to  bring  two  hundred  thousand 
men  into  the  field — a  statement  unsupported 
by  any  other  writer  and  unworthy  of  credit. 
At  this  time  the  Cadusian  king,  Aphenies, 
or  Ornaphemes,  uncertain  of  his  position, 
surrendered  his  sovereignty  to  Astyages  by 
a  secret  treaty,  and  the  Cadusians  peacefully 
passed  under  the  sway  of  the  Median  king. 

Astyages  was  unhappy  in  his  domestic 
relations.  His  ' '  mariage  de  convenance ' ' 
with  the  Lydian  princess,  Aryenis,  brought 
him  no  son,  and  the  want  of  an  heir  led  him 
to  contract  those  marriages  mentioned  by 
Moses  of  Chorene  in  his  History  of  Armenia 
— one  with  Anusia,  and  another  with  the 
beautiful  Tigrania,  sister  of  the  Armenian 
king,  Tigranes.  Still  he  had  no  male  off- 
spring. Herodotus  and  Xenophon  assigned 
him  a  daughter  named  Mandane,  whom  they 
considered  the  mother  of  Cyrus  the  Great; 
but  Ctesias  denied  this,  and  gave  him  a 
daughter  named  Amytis,  whom  he  regarded 
as  the  wife,  first  of  Spitaces  the  Mede,  and 
afterwards  of  Cyrus  the  Persian.  These 
stories,  designed  to  gratify  the  vanity  of  the 
Persians  and  to  flatter  the  Medes,  are  entitled 
to  no  credit.  It  is  therefore  doubtful  if  the 
second  and  last  Median  king  had  any  child 
at  all. 

In  his  old  age,  B.  C.  558,  occurred  the 
event  which   ended  the  reign  of  Astyages 


and  the  empire  of  Media.  The  Persians — 
the  Aryan  kinsmen  of  the  Medes — had  be- 
come settled  in  the  region  south  and  south- 
east of  Media,  between  the  32nd  parallel 
and  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  had  acknowledged 
the  suzerainty  of  the  Median  kings  during 
the  period  of  their  greatness.  But  dwelling 
in  their  rugged  mountains  and  high  upland 
plains,  the  Persians  had  retained  the  primi- 
tive simplicity  of  their  manners,  and  had 
intermingled  but  slightly  with  the  Medes, 
being  governed  direcftly  by  their  own  native 
kings  of  the  Achsemenian  dynasty,  whose 
founder  was  said  to  have  been  the  legend- 
ary Achsemenes.  These  princes  were  re- 
lated bj'  marriage  with  the  Cappadocian 
kings,  and  their  royal  house  was  considered 
one  of  the  noblest  in  Western  Asia.  Herod- 
otus regarded  Persia  as  absorbed  into  Me- 
dia at  this  time,  and  the  Achsemenidse  as 
simply  a  noble  Persian  family.  Nicolas  of 
Damascus  considered  Persia  a  Median  sa- 
trapy, Atradates,  the  father  of  Cyrus,  being 
satrap.  Xenophon  and  Moses  of  Chorene 
gave  the  Achsemenidse  their  royal  rank,  and 
considered  Persia  as  completely  independent 
of  Media,  while  they  regarded  Cyrus  as  a 
great  and  powerful  sovereign  during  the 
reign  of  Astyages;  and  this  view  is  sustained 
by  the  native  Persian  records.  In  the  Be- 
histun  Inscription,  Darius  declares:  "There 
are  eight  of  my  race  who  hav-e  been  kings 
before  me.  I  am  the  ninth."  In  an  in- 
.scription  found  on  a  brick  brought  from 
Senkereh,  Cyrus  the  Great  calls  himself 
' '  the  son  of  Canibyses,  the  powerful  king. ' ' 
The  residence  of  Cyrus  at  the  Median  court 
at  Ecbatana — which  is  asserted  in  almost 
every  narrative  of  his  life  before  he  became 
king — would  seem  to  imply  at  least  an  ac- 
knowledgment of  nominal  Median  suprem- 
acy over  Persia. 

During  his  residence  at  the  Median  court 
Cyrus  obser\'ed  the  unwarlike  disposition  of 
that  generation  of  Medes,  who  had  not  seen 
any  acflual  military-  ser\'ice.  He  had  a  con- 
tempt for  the  personal  characfter  of  Astyages, 
who  .spent  his  life  in  luxury-,  mainly  at  Ec- 
batana, amid  euiuichs,  concubines  and  dan- 
cing-girls.     The    Persian  crown-prince    re- 


POLITICAL    HISTOR Y. 


243 


solved  to  raise  the  standard  of  rebellion,  to 
free  his  country  from  Median  supremacy, 
and  to  vindicate  the  pure  Zoroastrian  relig- 
ion, which  the  Achoemenians  championed, 
and  which  the  Magi,  aided  and  upheld  by 
the  Median  monarchs,  had  corrupted. 

Cyrus  asked  pennission  from  Astyages  to 
visit  his  father,  who  was  in  poor  health,  but 
this  request  was  refused  by  the  Median 
king  on  the  plea  that  he  was  too  much  at- 
tached to  the  Persian  crown-prince  to  miss  his 
presence  for  a  single  daj\  But  on  the  appli- 
cation of  a  favorite  eunuch,  C3'rus  was  al- 
lowed a  leave  of  absence  for  five  months, 
and  with  several  attendants  he  left  Ecbatana 
by  night,  taking  the  road  leading  to  his 
native  Persia. 

The  next  evening,  enjoying  himself  over 
his  wine  as  usual,  in  the  company  of  his 
concubines,  singing-girls  and  dancing-girls, 
Astyages  asked  one  of  them  to  sing.  The 
girl  took  her  lyre  and  sang  as  follows: 
"The  lion  had  the  wild-boar  in  his  power, 
but  let  him  depart  to  his  own  lair;  in  his 
lair  he  will  wax  in  strength,  and  will  cause 
the  lion  a  world  of  toil  :  till  at  length, 
although  the  weaker,  he  will  o\'ercome  the 
stronger."  The  words  of  this  song  caused 
the  king  extreme  anxiety,  as  he  had  already 
learned  of  a  Chaldaean  prophecy  designat- 
ing Cyrus  as  a  future  king  of  the  Persians. 
Astyages  at  once  ordered  an  officer  with  a 
body  of  horsemen  to  pursue  the  Persian 
crown-prince  and  bring  him  back  dead  or 
alive.  The  officer  overtook  Cyrus  and  an- 
nounced his  errand,  whereupon  Cyrus  ex- 
pressed his  willingness  to  return  to  the  Me- 
dian court,  but  propo.sed  that,  as  it  was  late, 
they  should  rest  for  the  night.  The  Medes 
agreed  to  this;  and  Cyrus,  feasting  them, 
made  them  all  into.xicated,  after  which  he 
mounted  his  horse  and  rode  off  at  full  speed 
with  his  attendants,  until  he  arrived  at  a 
Persian  outpost,  where  he  had  arranged 
with  his  father  to  meet  a  body  of  Persian 
troops.  After  having  slept  off  their  drunk- 
enness and  di.scovering  that  their  prisoners 
had  fled,  the  Medes  pursued,  and  again 
overtaking  Cyrus,  who  was  backed  by  an 
armed   force,   they  attacked  him,  but  were 


defeated  with  great  loss  and  driven  into  re- 
treat; and  Cyrus  escaped  into  Persia. 

Upon  hearing  of  the  escape  of  the  Persian 
crown-prince,  Astyages  was  greatly  cha- 
grined, and,  .smiting  his  thigh,  he  ex- 
claimed: "Ah!  fool,  thou  knewest  well  that 
it  boots  not  to  heap  favors  on  the  vile;  yet 
didst  thou  suffer  thy.self  to  be  gulled  by 
smooth  words;  and  so  thou  hast  brought 
upon  thy.self  this  mischief.  But  even  now 
he  shall  not  get  off  scotfree. "  Instantly  the 
Median  king,  in  his  rage,  sent  for  his  gen- 
erals, who,  in  pursuance  of  the  royal  orders, 
soon  colledled  an  army  of  three  thousand 
chariots,  two  hundred  thousand  horse,  and 
a  million  footmen,  to  reduce  Persia  to  obe- 
dience. With  this  immense  host  Astj^ages 
invaded  the  revolted  province,  and  engaged 
the  army  which  Cyrus  and  his  father,  Cam- 
byses,  had  assembled  for  defense.  The 
Persian  army  consisted  of  a  hundred  char- 
iots, fifty  thousand  horsemen,  and  three 
bundled  thousand  light-armed  foot,  who 
were  drawn  up  in  front  of  a  fortified  town 
near  the  frontier.  The  first  day's  battle  was 
sanguinary  but  indecisive;  but  on  the  second 
day  Astyages,  by  a  skillful  use  of  his  supe- 
rior numbers,  won  a  decided  vidlorj-. 

After  detaching  one  hundred  thousand 
men  with  orders  to  make  a  circuit  and  get 
into  the  rear  of  the  town,  the  Median  king 
renewed  the  attack;  and  when  the  Persians 
had  their  whole  attention  diredled  to  the 
battle  in  their  front,  the  detached  Median 
troops  fell  on  the  city  and  took  it,  before 
the  garrison  was  aware.  Cambyses,  who 
commanded  the  garrison,  was  mortally 
wounded  and  taken  prisoner.  The  Persian 
army  in  the  open  field,  finding  itself  attacked 
in  front  and  rear,  broke  and  fled  towards 
the  interior,  to  defend  Pasargadae,  the  Per- 
sian capital.  After  giving  Cambyses  an 
honorable  burial,  Astyages  hotly  pursued 
the  fleeing  Persian  ho.st. 

Between  the  battle-field  and  Pasargadae 
was  a  barrier  of  lofty  and  precipitous  hills, 
penetrated  onl)-  by  a  single  narrow  pass, 
guarded  by  ten  thousand  Persians.  Seeing 
that  the  pass  could  not  be  forced,  Astyages 
sent   a   detachment   along   the  foot  of  the 


244 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  )  '.—MEDIA. 


range  till  tlie>-  found  a  place  where  they 
could  ascend  the  mountain,  when  they 
climbed  the  rugged  declivity  and  seized  the 
heights  directly  above  the  defile.  Thereupon 
the  Persians  were  obliged  to  evacuate  their 
strong  position  and  to  fall  back  to  a  lower 
range  of  hills  near  Pasargadae,  where  an- 
other conflict  of  two  days  occurred.  On  the 
first  day  the  Medes  failed  in  all  their  efforts 
to  ascend  the  low  but  steep  hills,  the  Per- 
sians hurling  hea\'y  masses  of  stone  upon 
their  ascending  colunnis.  On  the  second 
day  Astyages  had  placed  a  body  of  troops 
at  the  foot  of  the  hills  below  his  attacking 
columns,  with  orders  to  kill  all  who  refused 
to  a.scend,  or  who,  after  ascending,  endeav- 
ored to  descend  the  heights.  Thus  forced 
to  advance,  the  Medes  fought  with  despera- 
tion, driving  the  Persians  before  them  up  the 
slopes  of  the  hill  to  its  summit,  where  the 
Persian  women  and  children  had  been  placed 
for  safety.  The  courage  of  the  Persians  was 
aroused  by  the  taunts  and  reproaches  of 
their  mothers  and  wi\'es,  and,  by  a  sudden 
furious  charge,  they  overbore  the  astonished 
Medes,  driving  them  in  headlong  flight 
down  the  declivity  in  such  confusion  that 
the  Persians  slew  sixty  thousand  of  them. 
Astyages  still  persevered,  but  was  deci- 
sively defeated  by  Cyrus  in  a  fifth  battle  near 
Pasargadas,  his  anny  being  routed  and  his 
camp  taken.  All  the  Median  royal  insignia 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  vicftorious  Persian 
king,  who  assumed  them  amid  the  enthusi- 
astic shouts  of  his  troops,  who  saluted  him 
as  "King  of  Media  and  Persia."  Astj'ages 
sought  safety  in  flight,  his  army  dispersed, 
and  most  of  his  followers  deserted  him.  He 
was  hotly  pursued  Ijy  his  triumphant  foe, 


who,  forcing  him  to  an  engagement,  again 
defeated  him  and  took  him  prisoner. 

The  Median  Empire  had  now  recei\ed  its 
death-blow.  Media  and  all  its  dependencies 
at  once  submitted  to  Cyrus,  who  thus  lie- 
came  the  founder  of  the  great  Medo-Persian 
Empire,  which  for  two  centuries  swayed  the 
destinies  of  all  Western  Asia  and  North- 
eastern Africa,  after  the  conquest  and  al)- 
sorption  of  the  great  Oriental  empires  con- 
temporary with  Media — namely,  Lydia,  Ba- 
bylonia and  Egypt.  Thus  the  supremacy  of 
the  Aryan  race  in  Asia  was  transferred  from 
the  Medes  to  their  near  kinsmen,  the  Per- 
sians; and  pure  Zoroastrianism  was  restored 
on  the  ruins  of  the  corrupt  Magian  system 
which  the  Median  kings  had  allowed  to 
take  the  place  of  the  primitive  faith  of  the 
BaCtrian  prophet.  The  law  of  the  new  em- 
pire was  .still  "the  law  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians. ' '  Official  employments  were  open 
to  the  people  of  both  the.se  kindred  Arj-an 
nations. 

The  Median  Empire,  in  its  extent  and 
fertility  of  territorN',  was  not  inferior  to  the 
A.ssyrian.  It  reached  from  Rhagas  and  the 
Carmanian  desert  on  the  east  to  the  river 
Halys  on  the  west — a  distance  of  about 
thirteen  hundred  miles.  From  its  northern 
confines  along  the  Euxine  (  now  Black  Sea), 
the  Caucasus  and  the  Ca.spian,  to  its  south- 
ern limits  along  the  Euphrates  and  the 
Persian  Gulf,  its  width  was  about  fi\-e  hun- 
dred and  forty  miles  in  its  eastern  portion 
and  about  two  hundred  and  forty  miles  in 
its  western  portion.  It  thus  had  an  area  of 
about  half  a  million  .square  miles;  being  as 
large  as  Great  Britain,  France,  Spain  and 
Portugal  combined. 


CIVILI/.AI'ION. 


245 


SECTION    111.— MEDIAN    CIVILIZATION. 


jjLL  sacred  and  profane  history 
classes  the  Medes  and  Persians 
as  kindred  nations — a  fa(fl  sus- 
tained by  recent  linguistic  re- 
search, which  proves  them  to 
have  been  a  people  similar  in  race  ami  lan- 
guage, as  well  as  in  institutions  and  religion. 
This  fact,  along  with  the  express  statements 
of  Herodotus  and  Strabo,  shows  that  the 
Medes  and  Persians,  the  leading  Iranic  na- 
tions, belonged  to  the  great  Aryan,  or  Indo- 
European  branch  of  the  Caucasian  race.  In 
ancient  times  all  the  leading  tribes  and  na- 
tions of  the  great  plateau  of  Iran  and  even 
bej'ond  it  in  a  northerh*  direcftion  to  the 
Jaxartes  (now  Sihon )  river,  and  eastward 
to  the  Hyphasis  (now  Sutlej) — Medes,  Per- 
sians, Sagartians,  Chorasmians,  Badlrians, 
Sogdians,  Hyrcanians,  Rarangians,  Ganda- 
rians  and  Sanskritic,  or  Brahmanic  Indians 
— all  belonged  to  a  single  stock,  united  by 
the  tie  of  a  common  language,  common 
manners  and  customs,  and  mainly  a  com- 
mon religious  faith.  The  Medes  and  Per- 
sians— the  two  leading  Ar},-an  nations  of 
Asia — were  scarcely  distinguishable  from 
each  other  in  an}'  ethnic  features. 

The  sculptures  of  the  Achtemenian  Kings 
of  Persia  represent  the  Medes  and  Persians  as 
a  noble  variety  of  the  human  species — with 
a  tall,  graceful  and  stately  physical  form;  a 
handsome  and  attracftive  physiognomy,  fre- 
quentlj'  bearing  some  resemblance  to  the 
Greek;  a  high  and  straight  forehead;  the 
no.se  nearly  in  the  same  line,  long  and  well- 
formed,  sometimes  markedly  aquiline;  the 
upper  lip  short,  usually  shaded  by  a  mus- 
tache; the  chin  rounded  and  commonlj'  cov- 
ered with  a  curly  beard.  The  race  was 
proud  of  their  hair,  which  grew  plentifully. 
On  the  top  of  the  head  the  hair  was  worn 
smooth,  but  was  drawn  back  from  the  fore- 
head and  twisted  into  a  row  or  two  of  crisp 
curls,  being  also  arranged  into  a  large  ma.ss 
of  similar  small  close  ringlets  at  the  back  of 
the  head  over  the  ears. 

Xenophon  tells  us  that  the  Median  women 


were  remarkable  for  their  stature  and  beauty. 
Plutarch,  Anunianus  Marcellinus  and  others 
say  the  .same  of  the  Persian  women.  The 
ancient  Aryan  nations  appear  to  have  treated 
women  with  a  s])irit  of  chivalry,  allowing 
them  the  full  de^'elojiment  of  their  physical 
powers,  and  rendering  them  specially  at- 
tractive to  their  own  husbands  and  to  men 
of  other  nations. 

Says  Rawlin.son:  "The  modern  Persian 
is  a  very  degenerate  representative  of  the 
ancient  Aryan  stock.  Slight  and  supple  in 
person,  with  quick,  glancing  eyes,  delicate 
features  and  a  vivacious  manner,  he  lacks 
the  dignity  and  strength,  the  calm  repose 
and  simple  grace  of  the  race  from  which  he 
is  sprung.  Fourteen  centuries  of  subjet^tion 
to  despotic  sway  have  left  their  stamp  upon 
his  countenance  and  his  frame,  which, 
though  still  retaining  some  traces  of  the 
original  type,  have  been  sadly  weakened 
and  lowered  by  so  long  a  term  of  subser- 
vience. Probably  the  wild  Kurd  or  Lur  of 
the  present  daj-  more  nearly  corresponds  in 
physique  to  the  ancient  Mede  than  do  the 
softer  inhabitants  of  the  great  plateau." 

The  ancient  Medes  were  noted  for  their 
braverj'.  Originally  equal,  and  perhaps  su- 
perior to  their  Persian  kinsmen,  they  were 
during  the  entire  period  of  Persian  suprem- 
acy only  second  to  them  in  courage  and  war- 
like characteristics.  When  allowed  to  take 
his  choice  out  of  the  vast  ho.st  of  Xerxes 
during  the  war  with  Greece,  Mardonius  se- 
lected the  Median  troops  next  to  the  Per- 
sians. When  the  battle  opened  he  kept  the 
Medes  near  him.self,  assigning  them  their 
place  in  the  line  near  that  of  the  Persian 
contingent.  Diodorus  states  that  the  Medes 
were  chosen  to  make  the  first  attack  upon 
the  Greek  position  at  Thermopylse,  where 
they  showed  their  Aalor,  though  unsuccess- 
ful. In  the  earlier  periods  of  their  histoni", 
before  they  had  been  corrupted  by  wealth 
and  luxun.',  their  courage  and  military 
prowess  fully  earned  them  the  titles  ajiplied 
to    them  by  the   Hebrew  jirophet  Ezekiel: 


246 


ANCIENT  HISTOR ) '.—MEDIA. 


"the  might  J-  one  of  the  heathen — the  ter- 
rible of  the  nations." 

Median  valor  was  utterlj-  merciless.  Me- 
dian armies,  we  are  told,  did  "dash  to  pieces" 
the  fighting-men  of  other  nations,  giving 
them  no  quarter;  and  inflicfled  indignities 
and  cruelties  upon  the  women  and  children 
of  their  enemies.  The  worst  atrocities  which 
lust  and  hate  inspired  accompanied  the  Me- 
dian conquests,  neither  the  virtue  of  women 
nor  the  innocence  of  children  being  any 
protecflion  to  them.  The  infant  was  slain 
before  its  parents'  eyes,  and  the  sancftity  of 
the  domestic  hearth  was  invaded.  Insult 
and  vengeance  were  allowed  full  scope,  and 
the  brutal  Median  soldierj-  freely  indulged 
their  tiger-like  thirst  for  the  blood  of  their 
foes. 

The  habits  of  the  Medes  were  at  first  sim- 
ple and  manly ;  but,  as  with  all  conquering 
Oriental  nations,  success  was  at  once  fol- 
lowed by  degeneracy,  and  the  Medes  in  due 
time  became  corrupted  and  enervated  by  the 
luxuries  of  conquest.  After  their  conquests 
they  relaxed  the  stringency  of  their  former 
habits  and  indulged  in  the  pleasures  of  soft 
and  luxurious  living.  Xenophon  contrasted 
in  vivid  colors  the  primitive  simplicity 
of  Persia  proper,  where  the  old  Aryan 
habits,  once  common  to  both  nations, 
were  still  maintained  in  all  their  original 
stringency,  with  the  luxurj-  and  magnifi- 
cence prevailing  at  Ecbatana.  Herodotus 
and  vStrabo  alluded  to  the  luxury  of  the 
Median  dress.  Thus  it  appears  that  the 
Medes  in  the  later  days  of  their  empire  were 
a  luxurious  people,  displaying  a  pomp  and 
magnificence  unknown  to  their  ancestors, 
affecting  splendor  in  their  dre,ss,  grandeur 
and  elegant  ornamentation  in  their  build- 
ings, variety  in  their  banquets,  and  reaching 
a  degree  of  civilization  almo.st  equal  to  that 
of  the  Assyrians,  though  vastly  inferior  to 
them  in  taste  and  refinement.  Their  orna- 
mentation displayed  a  barbaric  magnifi- 
cence, distinguished  by  richness  of  material. 
Literature  and  letters  received  little  atten- 
tion. A  stately  dress  and  a  new  style  of 
architedlure  are  the  onlj'  Median  inventions. 
Professor   Rawlinson    says   of   the    Medes: 


"They  were  brave,  energetic,  enterprising, 
fond  of  display,  capable  of  appreciating  to 
some  extent  the  advantages  of  civilized  life; 
but  they  had  little  genius,  and  the  world  is 
scarcely  indebted  to  them  for  a  single  im- 
portant addition  to  the  general  stock  of  its 
ideas." 

Herodotus  says  that  in  the  army  of 
Xerxes  the  Medes  were  armed  exac5lly  like 
the  Persians,  and  that  thej-  wore  a  soft  felt 
cap  on  the  head,  a  sleeved  tunic  on  tlie 
body,  and  trou.sers  on  the  legs.  He  tells 
us  that  their  offensive  arms  were  the 
spear,  the  bow  and  the  dagger.  They 
had  large  wicker  .shields,  and  carried  their 
quivers  suspended  at  their  backs.  The  tunic 
was  sometimes  made  into  a  coat  of  mail 
by  adding  to  it  on  the  outside  a  number  of 
small  iron  plates  arranged  so  as  to  overlap 
each  other  like  the  scales  of  a  fish.  They 
.ser\-ed  alike  on  horseback  and  on  foot,  with 
like  equipments  in  both  cases.  Strabo  and 
Xenophon,  as  well  as  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah, 
describe  the  Median  armies  as  originally 
simpler  in  charadler.  The  primitive  Medes 
were  a  nation  of  horse-archers.  Trained 
from  early  boyhood  to  a  ^•ariety  of  eques- 
trian exercises,  and  skillful  in  the  use  of  the 
bow,  they  dashed  upon  their  enemies  with 
.swarms  of  horse,  like  the  Scythians,  and 
won  their  vicflories  mainly  bj'  the  skillful 
discharge  of  their  arrows  as  they  advanced, 
retreated,  or  manoeuvred  about  their  foe. 
The  prophet  Jeremiah  spoke  of  the  sword 
and  the  .spear  being  used  by  the  Medes  and 
Persians. 

The  sculptures  of  Persepolis  represent  the 
bow  u.sed  by  the  Medes  and  Persians  as 
short,  and  cur\'ed  like  that  of  the  As.syrians. 
It  was  generally  carried  in  a  bow-case, 
either  suspended  at  the  back  or  from  the 
girdle.  The  arrows,  carried  in  a  quiver  sus- 
pended behind  the  right  shoulder,  were  not 
over  three  feet  long.  The  quiver  was  round, 
covered  at  the  top  and  fastened  by  means  of 
a  flap  and  strap,  the  last  passed  over  a  but- 
ton. The  Median  spear,  or  lance,  was  six 
or  seven  feet  long.  The  sword  was  short, 
and  was  suspended  at  the  right  thigh  by 
means  of  a  belt  encircling  the  waist,  and 


CIMI.I/.ATION. 


247 


was  also  held  h\-  a  strap  fastened  to  the  bot- 
tom of  the  sheath  and  passing;  around  the 
right  leg  just  above  the  knee.  Median 
shields  were  either  round  or  oval. 

The  sculptures  show  us  the  favorite  dress 
of  the  Medes  in  peace.  The  Persian  bas- 
reliefs  represent  the  long  flowing  robe,  with 
its  graceful  folds,  as  the  garb  of  the  kings, 
the  chief  nobles  and  the  chief  officers  of  the 
court.  This  dress  is  also  seen  upon  the 
darics  and  the  gems,  and  is  believed  to  be  the 
celebrated  "  Median  garment"  mentioned  by 
Herodotus,  Xenophon  and  Strabo.  This 
garment  fitted  closely  to  the  chest  and 
shoulders,  but  hung  over  the  arms  in  two 
large  loose  sleeves  open  at  the  bottom.  It 
was  fastened  at  the  waist  b)-  a  cincflure. 
Below  it  drooped  in  two  clusters  of  perpen- 
dicular folds  at  both  sides,  and  hung  between 
these  in  festoons  like  a  curtain.  It  reached  to 
the  ankles.  The  Median  robes  were  of 
many  colors,  some  being  purple,  .some  scar- 
let, and  others  a  dark  gray  or  a  deep  crimson. 
Procopius  .says  that  they  were  made  of  silk. 
Xenophon  .says  that  the  Medes  wore  under- 
garments, such  as  a  sleeved  shirt,  or  tunic, 
of  a  purple  color,  and  embroidered  trousers. 
The  feet  were  co\'ered  with  high  shoes  or 
low  boots,  opening  in  front  and  fastened  with 
buttons.  The  Medes  wore  felt  caps  like  the 
Persians,  or  high-crowned  hats,  made  of  felt 
or  cloth,  and  dyed  in  different  hues. 

Xenophon  tells  us  that  the  Medes  u.sed  cos- 
metics, rubbing  them  into  the  skin  to  im- 
prove the  complexion.  They  also  used  false 
hair  in  abundance.  Like  other  Oriental  na- 
tions, ancient  and  modern,  they  used  djes  to 
improve  the  brilliancy  of  the  eyes  and  make 
them  appear  larger  and  softer.  They  also 
wore  golden  ornaments,  such  as  chains  or 
collars  around  the  neck,  bracelets  around  the 
wrists,  and  ear-rings  fastened  into  the  ears. 
The  bits  and  other  parts  of  the  harness  of 
their  horses  were  also  frequently  of  gold. 

Xenophon  also  tells  us  that  the  Medes 
were  extremely  luxurious  at  their  ban- 
quets. Not  only  plain  meat  and  various 
kinds  of  game,  with  bread  and  wine,  but 
manj'  side-dishes  and  different  kinds  of 
sauces,  were  set  before  their  guests.      They 


ate  with  the  hand,  as  Orientals  still  do,  and 
used  napkins.  Each  guest  had  his  own 
dishes.  Wine  was  dnnik  at  the  meal  and 
afterwards,  and  the  feast  often  ended  in 
tnrmoil  and  confu.sion.  At  court  the  king 
received  his  wine  at  the  hands  of  the  cup- 
bearer, who  first  tasted  it,  .so  that  the  king 
might  be  certain  that  it  was  not  poisoned, 
and  then  handed  it  to  his  master  with  much 
pomp  and  ceremony. 

The  court  ceremonial  was  imposing.  He- 
rodotus tells  us  that  the  monarch  was  ordina- 
rily kept  secluded,  and  that  no  person  could 
be  admitted  to  his  presence  without  formally 
requesting  an  audience  and  without  being 
led  before  the  sovereign  by  the  proper  offi- 
cer. Strabo  says  that  when  he  was  admit- 
ted he  prostrated  him.self  with  the  same 
signs  of  adoration  as  when  he  entered  a 
temple.  The  king,  surrounded  by  his  at- 
tendants, eunuchs  and  others,  maintained  a 
haughty  resen'e,  and  the  visitor  only  saw 
him  from  a  distance.  Business  was  mainly 
transacfled  by  writing.  The  monarch  .sel- 
dom left  his  palace,  and  was  informed  of 
the  state  of  his  empire  through  the  reports 
of  his  officers. 

The  chief  court  amusement  was  hunting, 
but  the  king  himself  seldom  participated  in 
this  pastime.  Beasts  of  the  chase  were 
always  abundant  in  Media;  and  the  Median 
nobles  are  mentioned  by  Xenophon  as  hunt- 
ing lions,  bears,  leopards,  wild  boars,  stags, 
gazelles,  wild  sheep  and  wild  asses.  The 
first  four  of  these  were  considered  dangerous, 
the  others  harmless.  These  animals  were 
usually  pursued  on  horseback,  and  aimed  at 
with  the  bow  or  the  spear. 

The  Median  monarch,  like  other  Oriental 
sovereigns,  maintained  a  seraglio,  or  harem, 
of  wives  and  concubines;  and  polj'gamy  was 
a  common  cu.stom  among  the  wealth},-. 
Strabo  tells  us  of  a  peculiar  law  among 
some  Median  tribes  which  required  everj' 
man  to  have  at  least  five  wives.  The 
eunuchs,  who  .swarmed  at  court,  were 
mostly  foreigners  purcha.sed  in  their  infancy. 
This  despised  class  were  all-powerful  with 
their  royal  master  near  the  close  of  the 
Median  Empire. 


248 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  )  '.—MEDIA. 


Thus  corruption  gradually  sapped  the 
vitality  of  the  empire;  and  both  the  court 
and  people  had  abandoned  the  hardy  and 
simple  customs  of  their  ancestors,  and  had 
become  enervated  through  luxury  when  the 
revolt  of  the  Persians  inider  Cyrus  brought 
the  Median  Empire  to  a  speedy  end. 

Median  architecture  was  characterized  by 
a  barbaric  magnificence.  It  is  Ijelieved  that 
the  Medes  had  learned  sculpture  from  the 
Assyrians  and  that  they  taught  it  to  the 
Persians;  as  everswhere  among  the  remains 
of  the  Achsemeuian  kings  are  seen  modifica- 


tions of  A.ssyrian  types,  such  as  the  carving 
of  winged  genii,  of  colossal  figures  of  bulls 
and  lions,  of  grotesque  monsters,  and  of 
clumsy  representations  of  acftual  life,  in  imi- 
tation from  Assyrian  bas-reliefs.  The  only 
remnant  of  sculpture  remaining  that  can  be 
assigned  to  the  Medes  is  a  portion  of  a  colos' 
sal  stone  lion  yet  to  be  seen  at  Hamadan, 
greatly  injured  by  time,  and  consisting  of 
the  head  and  liody  of  the  lion,  measuring 
about  twelve  feet,  the  tail  and  the  forelegs 
being  broken  off.  Its  posture  indicates  some 
originality  in  Median  art. 


SECTION    IV.— ZOROASTRIANISM    AND    MAOISM. 


OHE  great  Iranic  religion — the 
fiTofyr^l]  faith  of  the  BaCtrians,  and  of 
--^  '  the  Medes  and  Persians  for 
many  centuries — was  founded 
by  the  ancient  BaCtrian  sage 
and  prophet,  Zoroaster,  or  Zarathustra ;  and 
its  sacred  book  was  the  Zend-Avesta.  Zoro- 
a,ster  claimed  divine  inspiration  and  professed 
to  have  occa,sional  revelations  from  the  Su- 
preme Being,  delivering  them  to  his  people 
in  a  mythical  form  and  .securing  their  accept- 
ance as  divine  bj-  the  Bacftrian  people,  after 
which  his  religion  gradually  spread  among 
the  other  Iranic  nations.  It  was  the  reli- 
gio!i  of  the  Persians  until  driven  out  by  the 
intolerance  of  Mohammedanism  in  the 
seventh  century  after  Christ.  It  now  exists 
in  Guzerat  and  Bombay  in  Hindoo.stan,  as 
the  creed  of  the  Parsees,  descendants  of  Per- 
sians who  sought  refuge  there  after  the  Mo- 
hammedan conquest  of  Persia.  The  Median 
and  Persian  kings,  as  servants  of  Ormazd, 
worshiped  the  fire  and  the  sun — .symbols  of 
the  god;  and  resisted  the  impure  grifBn — 
the  creature  of  Ahriman.  The  Zend-Avesta 
teaches  that  every  created  being  has  its 
Fereuer,  or  Fravashis,  its  ideal  essence,  first 
created  by  the  thought  of  Ormazd.  Ormazd 
himself  has  his  F'ravashis,  and  the  angelic 
e.s.sences  are  objecfls  of  adoration  e\'er)-where 
to  the  disciples  of  Zoroaster. 


Plato  mentioned  Zoroaster  about  four  cen- 
turies before  Christ.  In  speaking  of  the 
education  of  a  Persian  prince,  Plato  says 
that  "one  teacher  instructs  him  in  the  magic 
of  Zoroaster,  the  son  (or  priest)  of  Ormazd 
(or  Oramazes),  in  which  is  comprehended  all 
the  worship  of  the  gods."  Zoroaster  is  also 
spoken  of  by  Diodorus,  Plutarch,  the  elder 
Pliny,  and  many  writers  of  the  first  centuries 
after  Christ.  The  worship  of  the  Magi,  the 
Median  and  Persian  priesthood,  is  described 
by  Herodotus  before  Plato.  Herodotus 
gives  full  accounts  of  the  ritual,  the  priests, 
the  sacrifices,  the  purifications,  and  the 
mode  of  burial  empUned  b>-  the  Magi  in  his 
day,  about  four  and  a  half  centuries  before 
Christ;  and  his  account  closely  corresponds 
with  the  pracflices  of  the  Parsees,  or  fire- 
worshipers,  yet  remaining  in  a  few  places  in 
Persia  and  India.  He  says:  "  The  Persians 
have  no  altars,  no  temples  nor  images;  they 
worship  on  the  tops  of  the  mountains.  They 
adore  the  heavens,  and  sacrifice  to  the  sun, 
moon,  earth,  fire,  water  and  winds."  "They 
do  not  erecfl  altars,  nor  u.se  libations,  fillets 
or  cakes.  One  of  the  Magi  sings  an  ode 
concerning  the  origin  of  the  gods,  over  the 
sacrifice,  which  is  laid  on  a  bed  of  tender 
gra.ss."  "They  pay  great  reverence  to  all 
rivers,  and  must  do  nothing  to  defile  them; 
in  burj-ing  they  never  put  the  body  in  the 


ZOROA STRIA NfSM  AND    MAOISM. 


249 


ground  till  it  has  been  toni  by  sotne  bird  or 
dog;  they  cover  the  body  with  wax,  and 
then  put  it  in  the  ground."  "The  Magi 
think  thej-  do  a  meritorious  acft  when  the}- 
kill  ants,  snakes,  reptiles." 

Plutarch  gives   the  following  account  of 
Zoroaster  and  his  precepts: 

"Some  believe  that  there  are  two  Gods — 
as  it  were,  two  rival  workmen;  the  one 
whereof  they  make  to  be  the  maker  of  good 
things,  and  the  other  bad.  And  some  call 
the  better  of  these  God,  and  the  other  Dae- 
mon;  as  doth  Zoroastres,  the  Magee,  whom 
they  report  to  be  five  thousand  j-ears  elder 
than  the  Trojan  times.  This  Zoroastres 
therefore  called  the  one  of  these  Oromazes, 
and  the  other  Arimanius;  and  afiBrmed, 
moreover,  that  the  one  of  them  did,  of  any- 
thing sensible,  the  most  resemble  light,  and 
the  other  darkness  and  ignorance;  but  that 
Mithras  was  in  the  middle  betwixt  them. 
For  which  cause,  the  Persians  called  Mith- 
ras the  mediator.  And  they  tell  us  that  he 
first  taught  mankind  to  make  vows  and 
offerings  of  thanksgiving  to  the  one,  and  to 
offer  averting  and  feral  sacrifice  to  the  other. 
For  they  beat  a  certain  plant  called  hom- 
omy  in  a  mortar,  and  call  upon  Pluto  and 
the  dark;  and  then  mix  it  with  the  blood  of 
a  sacrificed  wolf,  and  convey  it  to  a  certain 
place  where  the  sun  never  shines,  and  there 
cast  it  awa>-.  For  of  plants  they  believe, 
that  some  pertain  to  the  good  God,  and 
others  again  to  the  evil  Daemon;  and  like- 
wise thej'  think  that  such  animals  as  dogs, 
fowls,  and  urchins  belong  to  the  good;  but 
water  animals  to  the  bad,  for  which  reason 
they  account  him  happy  that  kills  most  of 
them.  These  men,  moreover,  tell  us  a  great 
many  romantic  things  about  these  gods, 
whereof  the^e  are  some:  They  say  that 
Oromazes,  springing  from  purest  light,  and 
Arimanius,  on  the  other  hand,  from  pitchy 
darkness,  these  two  are  therefore  at  war 
with  one  another.  And  that  Oromazes  made 
six  gods,  whereof  the  first  was  the  author 
of  benevolence,  the  second  of  truth,  the 
third  of  justice,  and  the  rest,  one  of  wisdom, 
one  of  wealth,  and  a  third  of  that  pleasure 
which  accrues  from  good  a(flions;  and  that 
1-16.-U.  H. 


Arimanius  likewise  made  the  like  number 
of  contrary  operations  to  confront  them. 
After  this,  Oromazes,  having  first  trebled 
his  own  magnitude,  mounted  up  aloft,  so  far 
above  the  sun  as  the  sun  it.self  above  the 
earth,  and  .so  bespangled  the  heavens  with 
stars.  But  one  star  (called  Sirius  or  the 
Dog)  he  set  as  a  kind  of  .sentinel  or  scout 
before  all  the  rest.  And  after  he  had  made 
four-and-twenty  gods  more,  he  placed  them 
all  in  an  egg-shell.  But  those  that  were 
made  by  Arimanius  (  being  them,selves  also 
of  the  like  number)  breaking  a  hole  in  this 
beauteous  and  glazed  egg-shell,  bad  things 
came  b}'  this  means  to  be  intermixed  with 
good.  But  the  fatal  time  is  now  approach- 
ing, in  which  Arimanius,  who  by  means  of 
this  brings  plagues  and  famines  upon  the 
earth,  must  of  necessity  be  him.self  utterly 
extinguished  and  destroyed;  at  which  time, 
the  earth,  being  made  plain  and  level,  there 
will  be  one  life,  and  one  society  of  mankind, 
made  all  happj-,  and  one  speech.  But  Theo- 
pompus  saith,  that,  according  to  the  opin- 
ion of  the  Magees,  each  of  these  gods  sub- 
dues, and  is  subdued  by  turns,  for  the  spaca 
of  three  thousand  years  apiece,  and  that  for 
three  thousand  years  more  the)-  quarrel  and 
fight  and  destroy  each  other's  works;  but 
that  at  last  Pluto  shall  fail,  and  mankind 
shall  be  happy,  and  neither  need  food,  nor 
yield  a  .shadow.  And  that  the  god  who 
projects  these  things  doth,  for  some  time, 
take  his  repose  and  rest;  but  j-et  this  time 
is  not  so  much  to  him  although  it  seems  so 
to  man,  whose  sleep  is  but  short.  Such, 
then,  is  the  mythology  of  the  Magees." 

This  description  of  the  ancient  Median 
and  Pensian  religion,  by  Plutarch,  corres- 
ponds with  the  religion  of  the  modern  Par- 
sees,  as  it  was  developed  out  of  the  primitive 
docflrine  taught  by  Zoroaster. 

A  little  over  a  centurj-  ago  an  enterprising, 
energetic  and  enthusiastic  young  French- 
man, Anquetil  du  Perron — who  had  learned 
the  Zend  language,  in  which  the  Zend- 
Avesta  was  written,  from  the  Pansees  at 
Surat,  in  India — brought  one  hundred  and 
eighty  manu.scripts  of  that  sacred  book  to 
Europe  and  published  them  in  French  in 


250 


ANCIENT  HISTOR ) '.—MEDIA. 


'iTJ'i,  thus  giving  us  a  new  and  clear  idea 
of  the  religious  system  and  faith  of  the  an- 
cient Medes  and  Persians.  For  the  last 
half  centurj'  eminent  Orientalists  —  the 
Frenchman  Burnouf,  and  the  Germans 
Westergaard,  Brockhaus,  Spiegel,  Haug, 
Windischmann,  Hiibschmann  —  have  ana- 
lyzed the  Zend-Avesta,  and  have  found 
that  its  different  parts  belong  to  different 
dates.  The  Gathas,  or  rhythmical  hymns, 
are  found  to  be  very  ancient. 

Modern  Orientalists  and  antiquarians  dif- 
fer widely  as  to  the  age  of  the  books  of  the 
Zend-Avesta,  and  as  to  the  period  at  which 
Zoroaster  lived.  Plato  spoke  of  "  the  magic 
(or  religious  docftrines)  of  Zoroaster  the 
Ormazdian."  Plato  spoke  of  his  religion  as 
Magism,  or  the  Median  system,  in  Western 
Iran;  while  the  Zend-Avesta  originated  in 
Bacftria,  or  Eastern  Iran,  at  least  no  later 
than  the  sixth  or  seventh  century  before 
Christ.  When  the  Zend-Avesta  was  written 
Bacftria  was  an  independent  kingdom,  and 
Zoroaster  is  represented  as  teaching  under 
King  Vistagpa.  Bunsen  says  that  "the 
date  of  Zoroaster,  as  fixed  by  Aristotle,  can- 
not be  said  to  be  verj'  irrational.  He  and 
Eudoxus,  according  to  Pliny,  place  him  six 
thousand  years  before  the  death  of  Plato; 
Hermippus,  five  thousand  j'ears  before  the 
Trojan  war,"  which  would  be  about  B.  C. 
6300,  or  B.  C.  6350.  Bunsen,  however, 
further  says:  "At  the  present  stage  of  the 
inquiry  the  question  whether  this  date  is  set 
too  high  cannot  be  answered  either  in  the 
negative  or  affirmative."  Spiegel  regards 
Zoroaster  as  a  neighbor  and  contemporary 
of  Abraham,  and  thus  living  about  B.  C. 
2000.  DoUinger  believes  that  he  may  have 
flourished  ' '  somewhat  later  than  Moses,  per- 
haps about  B.  C.  1300;"  but  says  that  "it 
is  impossible  to  fix  precisely"  when  he  did 
live.  Rawlinson  alludes  only  to  the  facft 
that  Berosus  placed  him  anterior  to  B.  C. 
2234.  Haug  believes  the  Gathas,  the  oldest 
songs  of  the  Zend-Avesta,  to  have  been 
composed  as  early  as  the  time  of  Moses. 
Duncker  and  Rapp  think  Zoroaster  lived 
about  B.  C.  1200  or  1300;  and  their  view 
agrees  with   the  period  assigned  to  him  by 


Xanthus  of  Sardis,  a  Greek  writer  of  the 
sixth  century  before  Christ,  and  by  Cepha- 
lion  in  the  second  centun,-  after  Christ. 

The  place  where  Zoroaster  lived,  and  the 
events  of  his  life,  are  not  known  with  cer- 
tainty. Most  writers  think  that  he  lived  in 
Bacftria.  Haug  holds  that  the  language  of 
the  Zend-Avesta  is  Badlrian.  A  highly 
fabulous  and  mythical  life  of  Zoroaster, 
translated  by  Auquetil  du  Perron,  called  the 
Zartusht-Namah,  represents  him  as  going 
to  Iran  in  his  thirtieth  year,  passing  twenty 
years  in  the  desert,  performing  miracles 
during  ten  years,  and  teaching  philosophical 
lessons  in  Babjlon,  Pythagoras  being  one 
of  his  pupils;  but  this  account  is  proven  to 
be  false.  Says  Professor  Max  Miiller:  ' '  The 
language  of  the  Avesta  is  so  much  more 
primitive  than  the  inscriptions  of  Darius, 
that  many  centuries  must  have  passed  be- 
tween the  two  periods  represented  by  these 
two  strata  of  language."  The  Behistun 
Inscriptions  of  Darius  are  in  the  Achseme- 
nian  dialeifl,  a  later  linguistic  development 
of  the  Zend. 

Though  nothing  is  known  of  the  events 
of  his  life,  Zoroaster,  by  his  essentially  moral 
religion,  influenced  various  Arj^an  races 
over  wide  regions  for  many  centuries.  His 
religion  was  in  the  interest  of  morality,  hu- 
man freedom,  and  the  progress  of  mankind. 
Zoroaster  based  his  law  on  the  eternal  dis- 
tincflion  between  right  and  wrong.  His  law 
was  therefore  the  law  of  justice,  according 
to  which  the  supreme  good  consists  in  truth, 
duty  and  right.  Zoroaster  taught  provi- 
dence, aimed  at  holiness,  and  emphasized 
creation.  He  maintained  that  salvation  was 
only  wrought  out  by  an  eternal  battle  be- 
tween good  and  evil. 

The  whole  religion  of  the  Zend-Avesta 
revolves  around  the  person  of  Zoroaster,  or 
Zarathustra.  In  the  Gathas  of  the  Ya^na, 
the  oldest  of  the  second  books,  he  is  desig- 
nated "the  pure  Zarathustra,  good  in 
thought,  speech  and  work."  Zarathustra 
only  is  said  to  know  the  precepts  of  Ahura- 
Mazda  (Ormazd\  and  that  he  shall  be  made 
skillful  in  speech.  In  one  of  the  Gathas  he 
asserts  his  wish  to  bring  knowledge  to  the 


ZORO.lSTK/.LyfSM   AND    3fAG/SM. 


251 


pure,  in  the  power  ol'  ()rnia/.d,  to  give  them 
happiness,  as  Spiegel  translates  it.  Haug 
translates  the  same  passage  thus:  "  I  will 
swear  hostility  to  the  liars,  but  be  a  strong 
help  to  the  truthful."  He  prays  for  truth, 
declaring  himself  the  most  faithful  ,sen-ant 
in  the  world  of  Ormazd  the  Wise  One,  and 
for  this  reason  implores  for  a  knowledge  of 
what  is  most  desirable  to  do.  SaN-s  Zoroas- 
ter, according  to  Spiegel:  "When  it  came 
to  me  through  j'our  pra3-er,  I  thought  that 
the  spreading  abroad  of  your  law  through 
men  was  something  difficult. ' ' 

Zoroaster  was  oppressed  with  the  sight  of 
evil.  Spiritual  evil — the  evil  having  its 
origin  in  a  depraved  heart  and  a  will  turned 
from  goodness — tormented  him  most.  His 
meditations  convinced  him  that  all  the  W'oe 
of  the  world  had  its  origin  in  sin,  and  that 
the  root  of  sin  was  in  the  demonic  world. 
He  maintained  that  the  principles  of  good 
struggle  with  the  principles  of  evil,  rulers 
of  darkness,  spirits  of  wickedness  in  the  su- 
pernatural world.  Finnly  believing  that  a 
great  conflict  was  perpetually  in  progress 
between  the  powers  of  Light  and  Darkness, 
he  urged  all  good  men  to  take  part  in  the 
war,  and  battle  for  Ahura-Mazda,  (Ormazd), 
the  good  God,  against  Angra-Mainyus  (Ahri- 
man),  the  dark  and  evil  tempter. 

Great  natural  misfortunes  intensified  Zoro- 
aster's convicflion.  In  his  time  some  geo- 
logical convulsion  changed  the  climate  of 
Northern  Asia,  and  .suddenly  caused  bitter 
cold  where  there  had  previously  been  a 
tropical  heat.  Both  .Spiegel  and  Haug  have 
in  recent  years  translated  the  first  Fargard 
of  the  Vendidad,  which  commences  by  de- 
scribing a  good  country,  Aryana-Vaejo, 
which  Ahura-Mazda  had  created  as  a  region 
of  delight.  Thereupon  the  "evil  being, 
Angra-Mainyus,  full  of  death,  created  a 
might}-  serpent,  and  winter,  the  work  of  the 
Daevas.  Ten  months  of  winter  are  there, 
two  months  of  .summer."  It  is  next  .stated 
in  the  original  document:  "Seven  months 
of  summer  are  (were)  there;  five  months  of 
winter  were  there.  The  latter  are  cold  as  to 
water,  cold  as  to  earth,  cold  as  to  trees. 
There   is   the    heart    of    winter;    there    all 


around  falls  ileep  snow.     There  is  the  worst 
of  evils."     Spiegel  and  Haug  both  consider 
this  pas.sage  an  interpolation,  but  it  doubt- 
less referred  to  a  great  climatic  change,  by 
which    the  primeval   home  of  the  Aryans, 
Aryana-Vaejo,  became  suddenly  very  much 
colder   than    it    had    hitherto    l)een.     Such 
a    change    may  have    induced    the  migra- 
tion   of    the    Aryans    from    Aryana-Vaejo 
(Old    Iran)   to    Media    and     Persia    (New 
Iran).      Bunsen    and    Haug   believed  such 
a  history  of  migration  to  be  related  in  the 
first   Fargard   (chapter)  of  the  Vendidad. 
This  would  carr>'  us  back  to  the  oldest  part 
of  the  Veda,  and  show  the  movement  of  the 
Arjan  stream  southward  from  its  primitive 
home  in  Central  Asia,  until  it  divided  into 
two  branches,  one  spreading  over  Media  and 
Persia,  and  the  other  over  India.     The  first 
verse  of  this   old   document  represents  Or- 
mazd as  declaring  that  he  had  created  new 
regions,  desirable  as  homes;  thus  preventing 
Aryana-Vaejo    becoming    over -populated. 
Thus  the  very  first  verse  of  the  Vendidad 
contains   the  pleasant  remembrance  of  the 
migratory   races   from  their  Central   Asian 
fatherland,  and    the  Zoroastrian  faith  in  a 
creative    and   prote(5live    Providence.     The 
terrible    convulsion   which    changed    their 
summer   climate  into  the   pre.sent    Siberian 
winter  of  ten  months  was  a  portion  of  the 
divine  arrangement.     The  previous  attradl- 
iveness  of  Old  Iran  would  have  over-crowded 
that    Eden   with   the   whole   human    race. 
Thus   the    evil    Ahriman   was   allowed   to 
enter  it,  as  "a  new  serpent  of  destrudtion," 
changing  its  seven  months  of  summer  and 
five  of  winter  into  ten  of  winter  and  two  of 
summer.       Says    the    first    Fargard   of    the 
Vendidad:   "Therefore  Angra-Mainyus,  the 
death-dealing,  created  a  mighty  serpent  and 
snow."     The   .serpent   entering   the    Iranic 
Eden  is  one  of  the  curious  coincidences  of 
the  Iranic  and  Hebrew  traditions.      Bunsen 
and  Haugbeheve  Arj'ana-Vaejo,  or  Old  Iran 
— the  original  .seat  of  the  great  Aryan,   or 
Indo-European  race — to  have  been  located 
on  the  elevated  plains  north-east  of  Samar- 
cand,  between   the  thirty-seventh  and  for- 
tieth parallels  of  north  latitude,  and  between 


252 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— MEDIA. 


the  eighty-sixth  and  ninetieth  meridians  of 
east  longitude.  This  region  has  precisely  the 
climate  described — ten  months  of  winter  and 
two  of  sinnmer.  The  same  is  the  case  with 
Western  Thibet  and  the  greater  portion  of 
Central  Siberia.  Malte-Brun  says:  "  The 
winter  is  nine  or  ten  months  long  through 
almost  the  whole  of  Siberia."  The  only 
months  free  from  snow  are  June  aild  July. 

Sir  Charles  L,yell  says  that  ' '  great  oscil- 
lations of  climate  have  occurred  in  times 
immediately  antecedent  to  the  peopling  of 
the  earth  by  man."  During  the  present 
century  frozen  elephants,  or  mammoths, 
have  been  found  in  Siberia,  in  vast  numbers 
and  in  a  perfecfl  condition.  For  this  reason 
Lyell  considers  it  "reasonable  to  believe 
that  a  large  region  in  Central  Asia,  includ- 
ing perhaps  the  southern  half  of  Siberia, 
enjoyed  at  no  very  remote  period  in  the 
earth's  history  a  temperate  climate,  suffi- 
ciently mild  to  afford  food  for  numerous 
herds  of  elephants  and  rhinoceroses." 

In  the  midst  of  these  awful  convulsions 
of  nature — these  antagonistic  forces  of  ex- 
ternal good  and  evil — Zoroaster  evolved  his 
belief  in  the  dualism  of  all  things.  He  be- 
lieved that  the  Supreme  Being  had  set  all 
things  in  opposition  to  each  other,  two  and 
two.  He  did  not  believe  that,  "whatever 
is,  is  right."  Some  things  appeared  woe- 
fully wrong.  The  world  was  a  scene  of  war 
and  turmoil,  not  one  of  peace  and  quiet. 
Ivife  was  battle  to  the  good  man,  not  sleep. 
He  believed  that  the  good  God  watching 
over  all  was  constantly  opposed  by  a  power- 
ful evil  spirit,  with  whom  we  are  to  battle 
constantly  and  to  whom  we  are  never  to 
yield.  In  the  remote  future  he  perceived 
the  triumph  of  good;  but  that  triumph  could 
only  be  attained  by  fighting  the  good  fight 
now,  not,  however,  with  carnal  weapons. 
The  whole  dut)-  of  man  was  to  ha\e  ' '  pure 
thoughts ' '  entering  into  ' '  true  words ' '  and 
ending  in  ' '  right  acflions. ' ' 

The  Zend-Avesta  is  a  liturgy — a  colle{5lion 
of  hymns,  prayers,  invocations  and  thanks- 
givings. It  contains  prayers  to  numerous 
deities,  the  supreme  one  of  whom  is  Onuazd, 
the  others  being  onlv  his  servants. 


Says  Zarathustra:  "I  worship  and  adore 
the  Creator  of  all  things,  Ahura-Mazda  (Or- 
mazd),  full  of  light  !  I  worship  the  Amgsha- 
Spentas  (Amshaspands,  the  seven  arch- 
angels, or  protedling  spirits)!  I  worship 
the  body  of  the  primal  Bull,  the  soul  of  the 
Bull!  I  invoke  thee,  O  Fire,  thou  .son  of 
Ormazd,  most  rapid  of  the  Immortals!  I 
invoke  Mithra,  the  lofty,  the  immortal,  the 
pure,  the  sun,  the  ruler,  the  quick  Horse, 
the  eye  of  Ormazd!  I  invoke  the  holy  Sra- 
osha,  gifted  with  holiness,  and  Ragnu  (spirit 
of  justice),  and  Arstat  (spirit  of  truth)!  I 
invoke  the  Fravashi  of  good  men,  the  Fra- 
vashi  of  Ormazd,  the  Fravashi  of  my  own 
soul!  I  praise  the  good  men  and  women  of 
the  whole  world  of  purity!  I  praise  the 
Haoma,  health-bringing,  golden,  with  moist 
stalks!  I  praise  Sraosha,  whom  four  horses 
carry,  spotless,  bright-shining,  swifter  than 
the  storms,  who,  without  sleeping,  protedls 
the  world  in  darkness!" 

The  Zend-Avesta,  as  a  holy  book,  was  to 
be  read  in  private  by  the  laity,  or  to  be  re- 
cited in  public  by  the  priests.  This  sacred 
book  of  the  ancient  Medes  and  Persians  con- 
sists of  the  Vendidad,  of  which  twentj'-two 
Fargards,  or  chapters,  have  been  presented: 
the  Vispered,  in  twenty-seven;  the  Yagna, 
in  seventy;  and  the  Khordah-Avesta,  or 
Little- Avesta,  containing  the  Yashts,  the 
Patets,  and  other  prayers  for  the  use  of  the 
laity.  Spiegel  regards  the  Gathas  of  the 
Yagna  as  the  oldest  of  these,  the  Vendidad 
next,  and  lastly  the  first  part  of  the  Yagna 
and  the  Khordah-Avesta. 

The  Bundehesch  is  a  book  later  than  those 
just  mentioned,  but,  in  its  contents,  it  goes 
back  to  primitive  times.  Windischmann, 
who,  in  1863,  made  a  new  translation  of  this 
book,  says:  "  In  regard  to  the  Bundehesch, 
I  am  confident  that  closer  study  of  this  re- 
markable book,  and  a  more  exadl  compar- 
ison of  it  with  the  original  texts,  will  change 
the  unfavorable  opinion  hitherto  held  con- 
cerning it  into  one  of  great  confidence.  I 
am  justified  in  believing  that  its  author  has 
given  us  mainly  only  the  ancient  docflrine, 
taken  by  him  from  original  texts,  most  of 
which  are  now  lost.     The  more  thoroughly 


/.OROASTRI.\NIS}[   AND    I\IA(,IS.U. 


253 


it  is  examined  tlie  more  trustworthy  it  will 
be  found  to  be." 

Only  the  germs  of  the  Parsee  system  are 
found  in  the  elder  books  of  the  Zend-Avesta. 
It  has  been  doubted  if  the  doelrinc  of  Zer- 
ina-Akerana,  or  the  Monad  behind  the 
Duad,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Zend-Avesta, 
though  important  texts  in  the  Vendidad 
seem  to  impl\-  a  Supreme  and  Infinite  Being, 
who  created  both  Ormazd  and  Ahriman. 
The  following  is  an  outline  of  the  Parsee 
system,  as  derived  from  the  Hundehesch  and 
the  later  Parsee  writings; 

In  the  beginning  the  Eternal  or  Absolute 
Being  (Zerana-Akerana)  produced  two  other 
great  divine  beings.  The  first  of  these, 
called  Ahura-Mazda,  or  Ormazd,  remained 
true  to  him  and  was  the  King  of  Light. 
The  other,  called  Angra-Mainyus,  or  Ahri- 
man, was  the  King  of  Darkness.  Ormazd 
being  in  a  world  of  light  and  Ahriman  in  a 
world  of  darkness,  the  two  became  antago- 
nists. The  Infinite  Being  (Zerana-Akerana) 
thereupon  resolved  to  create  the  visible  by 
Ormazd,  for  the  purpose  of  exterminating 
the  evil  which  Ahriman  had  cau.sed;  fixing 
its  duration  at  twelve  thousand  years,  which 
he  divided  into  four  periods  of  three  thou- 
sand years  each.  Onnazd  was  to  rule  alone 
during  the  first  period.  Ahriman  was  to  be- 
gin his  operations  during  the  second  period, 
still,  however,  occupying  a  subordinate  posi- 
tion. Both  were  to  rule  together  during  the 
third  period.  Ahriman  was  to  have  the  as- 
cendency during  the  fourth  period. 

Ormazd  produced  the  Fereuers,  or  Frava- 
shi,  thus  beginning  the  creation.  Every- 
thing, either  already  created  or  to  be  created, 
has  its  Fravashi,  containing  the  reason  and 
basis  of  its  existence.  Onnazd  himself  has 
his  Fravashi  relating  to  Zerana-Akerana,  the 
Infinite.  A  spiritual,  invisible  world  there- 
fore existed  before  this  visible  world  of 
matter. 

In  the  creation  of  the  material  world, 
which  was  simply  an  incorporation  of  the 
spiritual  world  of  Fravashis,  Ormazd  first 
made  the  firm  \ault  of  heaven  and  the  earth 
on  which  that  vault  rests.  On  the  earth  he 
created  the  lofty  mountain  Albordj ,  the  mod- 


ern Elburz,  which  soared  upward  through 
all  the  spheres  of  the  heaven,  till  it  reached 
the  primal  light,  and  Ormazd  established  his 
abode  on  this  summit.  From  this  summit 
the  bridge  Chiuevat  extends  to  the  vault  of 
heaven  and  to  Gorodman,  which  is  the 
opening  in  the  vault  above  Albordj.  Gorod- 
man is  the  abode  of  P'rava-shis  and  of  the 
bles.sed,  and  the  bridge  leading  to  it  is  di- 
recflly  above  the  aby.ss  Duzahk,  the  awful 
gulf  beneath  the  earth,  the  dwelling-place 
of  Ahriman. 

Ormazd,  knowing  that  his  battle  with 
Ahriman  would  commence  after  his  first 
period,  armed  him.self,  and  for  his  aid  cre- 
ated the  shining  heavenly  host — the  sini, 
the  moon  and  the  stars — the  mighty  beings 
of  light  which  were  entirely  subserx'ient  to 
him.  He  first  created  "the  heroic  nmner, 
who  never  dies,  the  sun,"  and  made  him 
king  and  ruler  of  the  material  world.  From 
Albordj  he  starts  on  his  course  in  the  morn- 
ing, circling  the  earth  in  the  highest  spheres 
of  the  heaven,  and  returns  at  evening.  Or- 
mazd next  created  the  moon,  which  "has 
its  own  light,"  which,  leaving  Albordj,  cir- 
cles the  earth  in  a  lower  sphere  and  returns. 
He  then  created  the  five  planets  then 
known;  also  the  entire  host  of  fixed  stars,  in 
the  lowest  circle  of  the  heavens.  The  space 
between  the  earth  and  the  firm  vault  of  the 
heavens  is  consequenth'  divided  into  three 
spheres — that  of  the  sun,  that  of  the  moon, 
and  that  of  the  stars. 

The  host  of  stars  were  common  soldiers  in 
the  war  with  Ahriman,  and  were  divided 
into  four  troops,  each  having  its  appointed 
leader.  Twelve  companies  were  arranged 
in  the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac.  These 
were  all  grouped  into  four  great  di\-isions, 
in  the  east,  west,  north  and  south;  the 
planet  Tistr>'a  (Jupiter)  presiding  over  the 
eastern  division  and  named  "Prince  of  the 
Stars,"  Sitavisa  (Saturn)  watching  over  the 
western  division,  Vanant  (Mercur}')  over 
the  .southern,  and  Hapto-iringa  (IMars)  over 
the  northern.  The  great  star  Mesch,  or 
Meschgah  (Venus),  is  in  the  middle  of  the 
firmament,  and  leads  the  heavenly  host  of 
stars  in  the  struggle  against  Ahriman. 


254 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— MEDIA. 


The  dog  Sinus  (Sura)  is  also  a  watch- 
man of  the  heavens,  but  is  fixed  to  one 
place,  at  the  bridge  Chinevat,  standing 
guard  over  the  abyss  out  of  which  Ahri- 
man  comes. 

After  these  preparations  in  the  heavens 
had  been  finished  by  Ormazd,  the  first  of  the 
four  periods  of  three  thousand  years  each 
reached  its  end,  and  Ahrinian  saw  from  his 
gloomy  abode  what  Ornia/.d  had  done.  To 
antagonize  Ormazd,  Ahriman  created  a 
world  of  Darkness,  a  terrible  host,  as  nu- 
merous and  powerful  as  the  beings  of  Light. 
Ormazd,  knowing  all  the  misery  and  woe 
that  Ahriman  would  produce,  yet  knowing 
that  he  himself  would  triumph  in  the  strug- 
gle, offered  Ahriman  peace;  but  Ahriman 
chose  war.  But,  blinded  by  the  majesty  of 
Onnazd,  and  terror-stricken  at  the  sight  of 
the  pure  Fravashis  of  holy  men,  Ahriman 
was  conquered  by  the  strong  word  of  Or- 
mazd, and  fell  back  into  the  aby.ss  of  Dark- 
ness, lying  fettered  there  during  the  three 
thousand  years  of  the  second  period. 

Ormazd  now  finished  his  creation  upon 
the  earth.  Sapandomad  was  guardian  spirit 
of  the  earth.  The  earth,  as  Hethra,  was 
mother  of  the  living.  Khordad  was  chief 
of  the  seasons,  years,  months  and  days,  as 
well  as  protedlor  of  the  water,  which  flowed 
from  the  fountain  Anduisur,  from  Albordj. 
The  planet  Tistrya  was  appointed  to  raise 
the  water  in  vapor,  gather  it  in  clouds,  and 
let  it  fall  in  rain,  with  the  aid  of  the  planet 
Sitavisa.  These  ' '  cloud-compellers  ' '  were 
regarded  with  the  highest  reverence.  Amer- 
dad  was  the  god  of  vegetation,  but  the 
great  Mithra  was  the  lord  of  frudlification 
and  reproducflion  in  the  entire  organic  world, 
his  duty  being  to  lead  the  Fravashis  to  the 
bodies  which  they  were  to  occup)^ 

Everything  earthly  in  Ormazd's  world  of 
Light  had  its  protecfling  divinity,  or  guard- 
ian .spirit.  The.se  spirits  were  divided  into 
series  and  groups,  and  had  their  captains 
and  their  associated  assistants.  The  seven 
Amshaspands  (in  Zend,  AmSsha-Spentas) 
were  the  principal  ones  of  these  series,  of 
whom  Ormazd  was  the  first.  The  other  six 
were   Bahman,    King   of  Heaven;    Ardibe- 


hescht.  King  of  Fire;  Schariver,  King  of  the 
Metals;  Sapandomad,  Queen  of  the  Earth; 
Amerdad,  King  of  the  \'egetables;  and 
Khordad,  King  of  Water. 

Thus  ended  the  second  period  of  three 
thousand  years;  during  which  Ormazd  had 
likewi.se  produced  the  great  primitive  Bull, 
which,  being  the  representative  of  the  ani- 
mal world,  contained  the  seeds  of  all  living 
creatures. 

While  Ormazd  was  thus  finishing  his  cre- 
ation of  Eight,  Ahriman,  in  his  gloomy 
abyss,  was  ending  his  antagonistic  creation 
of  Darkness — making  a  corresponding  evil 
being  for  every  good  being  that  Ormazd 
created.  These  spirits  of  Darkness  stood  in 
their  ranks  and  orders,  with  their  seven  pre- 
siding evil  spirits,  or  Daevas,  corresponding 
to  the  seven  Amshaspands  of  the  world  of 
Light. 

The  vast  preparations  for  the  great  war 
between  Ormazd  and  Ahriman  being  fin- 
ished, and  the  end  of  the  second  period  of 
three  thousand  years  now  approaching, 
Ahriman  was  urged  by  one  of  his  Daevas 
to  commence  the  struggle.  Having  counted 
his  host,  and  found  nothing  therein  to  op- 
pose to  the  Fravashis  of  good  men,  he  fell 
back  dejecfted.  When  the  second  period 
ended,  Ahriman  sprang  aloft  fearlessly, 
knowing  that  his  time  had  arrived.  He 
was  followed  by  his  host,  but  he  only 
reached  the  heavens,  his  troops  remaining 
behind.  Seized  with  a  shudder,  he  .sprang 
from  heaven  upon  the  earth  in  the  form  of  a 
serpent,  penetrating  to  the  earth's  center, 
and  entering  into  everything  which  he  found 
upon  the  earth.  Passing  into  the  primal 
Bull,  and  even  into  fire,  the  visible  symbol 
of  Ormazd,  he  defiled  it  with  smoke  and 
vapor.  He  then  assailed  the  heavens;  and 
a  portion  of  the  stars  were  already  in  his 
power,  and  enveloped  in  smoke  and  mist, 
when  he  was  attacked  by  Ormazd,  aided  by 
the  Fravashis  of  holy  men.  After  ninety 
days  and  ninet>'  nights  he  was  thoroughly 
defeated,  and  driven  back  with  his  troops 
into  the  abyss  of  Duzahk. 

He  did  not,  however,  stay  there.  He 
made  a  way  for  himself  and  his  companion.^ 


ZOROASTRIANISM   AND   MAGTSM. 


255 


through  the  iniddk-  of  the  earth,  and  is  now 
living  on  the  earth  with  Ornia/.d,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  decree  ut  the  Inhnite. 

He  had  procUiced  terrible  destruction  in 
the  world;  but  the  more  e\il  he  attempted 
to  do,  the  more  he  unknowingly  fulfilled  the 
counsels  of  the  Infinite,  and  hastened  the 
development  of  good.  He  thus  entered  the 
Bull,  the  original  animal,  and  so  injured 
him  that  he  died.  But  then  Kaiomarts,  the 
first  man,  came  out  of  his  right  shoulder, 
and  from  his  left  shoulder  proceeded  Gosh- 
urun,  the  soul  of  the  Bull,  who  now  became 
the  guardian  spirit  of  the  animal  creation. 
The  entire  realm  of  clean  animals  and  plants 
came  from  the  Bull's  body.  Ovenvhelmed 
with  rage  and  fury,  Ahriman  now  created 
the  unclean  animals — for  every  clean  beast 
an  unclean  one.  Ormazd  having  created 
the  dog,  Ahriman  produced  the  wolf.  Or- 
mazd having  made  all  useful  animals,  Ahri- 
man made  all  noxious  ones;  and  likewise  of 
plants. 

Having  nothing  to  oppose  to  Kaiomarts, 
the  original  man,  Ahriman  resolved  to  kill 
him.  Kaiomarts  was  both  man  and  woman, 
and  after  his  death  a  tree  grew  from  his 
body,  bearing  ten  pair  of  men  and  women, 
Meschia  and  Meschiane  being  the  first. 
They  were  at  first  pure  and  innocent  and 
made  for  heaven,  worshiping  Ormazd  as 
their  creator;  but  Ahriman  tempting  them, 
they  drank  milk  from  a  goat,  thus  injuring 
themselves;  and  by  eating  the  fruit  which 
Ahriman  brought  them,  they  lost  a  hundred 
parts  of  their  happiness,  only  one  part  re- 
maining. The  woman  was  the  first  that 
sacrificed  to  the  Daevas.  After  fifty  j-ears 
they  had  two  children,  Siamak  and  \'e.schak. 
They  died  at  the  age  of  one  hundred  j-ears. 
They  remain  in  hell  until  the  resurreclion, 
in  piuiishment  for  their  sins. 

Thus  the  human  race  became  mortal  by 
the  sin  of  its  first  parents.  Man  stands  be- 
tween the  worlds  of  Light  and  Darkness, 
left  to  his  own  free  will.  Being  a  creature 
of  Ormazd  he  is  able  to  and  should  honor 
him,  and  aid  him  in  the  war  with  Ahriman; 
but  Ahriman  and  his  Daevas  surround  him 
night  and  day,  trying  to  mislead,  so  that 


they  nuist  thus  be  able  to  increa.se  the  power 
of  Darkness.  He  was  only  able  to  resist 
these  temptations,  to  which  his  first  parents 
,\ielded,  hecau.se  Ormazd  had  taken  pity  on 
him  and  given  him  a  revelation  of  his  will 
in  the  law  of  Zoroaster.  If  he  obeys  these 
precepts  he  is  beyond  harm  from  the  Daevas, 
being  diredlly  protedled  by  Ormazd.  The 
essence  of  the  law  is  the  command:  "Think 
jHirely,  speak  purely,  act  purely."  From 
Ormazd  comes  all  that  is  pure;  from  Ahri- 
man all  that  is  impure.  Bodily  purity  is  no 
less  worthy  than  moral  purity.  This  is  the 
reason  for  the  man}-  minute  precepts  regard- 
ing bodily  cleanliness.  The  entire  liturgic 
worship  hinges  vastly  on  this  point. 

The  Fravashis  of  men  originally  created 
by  Ormazd  are  preserved  in  heaven,  in  Or- 
mazd's  world  of  Light.  But  they  must 
come  from  hea\-en,  to  be  joined  to  a  human 
body,  and  to  enter  upon  a  path  of  probation 
in  this  world,  called'  the  "Way  of  the  Two 
Destinies."  At  death  the  souls  of  those 
who  have  chosen  the  good  in  this  world 
are  received  by  the  good  spirits,  and  guided, 
under  the  protei5tion  of  the  dog  Sura,  to  the 
bridge  of  Chinevat,  where  the  narrow  road 
conducts  to  heaven,  or  paradise.  The  souls 
of  the  wicked  are  dragged  to  the  bridge  bj' 
the  Daevas.  Ormazd  here  holds  a  tribu- 
nal and  decides  the  fate  of  the  human 
souls.  The  righteous  safely  pass  the  bridge 
into  the  abode  of  the  blessed,  being  there 
welcomed  with  rejoicing  bj'  the  Amshas- 
pands.  The  pious  soul  is  aided  in  crossing 
the  bridge  by  the  angel  Serosh,  "the 
happj',  well-formed,  swift,  tall  Serosh,"  who 
greets  the  new  comer  in  his  happy  journey 
to  the  abode  of  the  blessed,  where  he  is 
greeted  by  the  angel  \'ohu-mano,  who, 
rising  from  his  throne,  exclaims:  "How 
happy  art  thou,  who  hast  come  here  to  us, 
exchanging  mortality  for  immortality!" 
The  good  soul  then  proceeds  to  the  golden 
throne  in  paradise.  The  wicked  fall  over 
the  bridge  of  Chinevat,  into  the  abyss  of 
Duzahk,  where  they  find  themselves  in  the 
realm  of  Angra-Mainyus,  the  world  of  Dark- 
ness, where  thej-  are  forced  to  remain  in 
misery  and  woe,  tormented  by  the  Daevas. 


256 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— MEDIA. 


Ormazd  fixes  the  duration  of  the  punish- 
ment, and  some  are  redeemed  sooner  by 
means  of  the  prayers  and  intercessions  of 
their  friends,  but  many  must  stay  until  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead. 

Ahriman  himself  eiiecfts  this  consumma- 
tion, after  having  exercised  great  power 
over  men  during  the  last  period  of  three 
thousand  5'ears.  He  made  seven  comets  to 
autagonize  the  seven  great  luminaries 
created  b>'  Ormazd — the  sun,  moon  and  five 
planets  then  known.  These  comets  went 
on  their  destructive  course  through  the 
heavens,  filling  everv'thing  with  danger 
and  every  human  being  with  terror.  But 
Onnazd  put  them  under  the  control  of  his 
planets  to  restrain  them.  The  planets  will 
exercise  this  power  until,  b}-  the  decree  of 
the  Infinite  at  the  close  of  the  last  period, 
one  of  the  comets  will  break  away  from  his 
watchman,  the  moon,  and  dash  upon  the 
earth,  causing  a  general  conflagration.  Be- 
fore this,  however,  Ormazd  will  send  his 
Prophet,  Sosiofh,  and  cause  the  conversion 
of  mankind,  to  be  followed  by  the  general 
resurre(5tion. 

Ormazd  will  clothe  the  bones  of  men  with 
new  flesh,  and  friends  and  relatives  will 
again  recognize  each  other.  Then  comes 
the  great  division  of  the  just  from  the 
wicked. 

When  Ahriman  causes  the  comet  to  fall 
upon  the  earth  to  gratify-  his  destructive  in- 
clinations he  will  be  really  .serving  the  Infi- 
nite Being  against  his  own  will;  as  the  con- 
flagration caused  Ijy  this  comet  will  change 
the  whole  earth  into  a  stream  like  melted 
iron,  which  will  pour  down  with  fury  into 
the  abode  of  Ahriman.  All  beings  must 
now  pass  through  this  stream.  It  will  feel 
like  warm  milk  to  the  righteous,  who  will 
pass  through  to  the  realm  of  the  just;  but 
the  sinners  shall  be  carried  along  by  the 
stream  into  the  aby.ss  of  Duzahk,  where  they 
will  burn  three  days  and  nights,  after  which, 
being  pxu-ified,  they  will  invoke  Ormazd  and 
be  received  into  heaven. 

Ahriman  himself  and  all  in  the  abyss  of 
Duzahk  shall  afteuwards  be  purified  by  this 
fire;  all  evil  will  be  consumed  and  all  dark- 


ne.ss  will  be  banished.  A  more  beautiful 
earth,  pure  and  perfect,  and  destined  to  be 
eternal,  will  come  from  the  extincft  fire. 

Ahura-Mazda  (Ormazd)  was  the  "all 
bountiful,  the  all-wise,  living  being"  or 
' '  spirit ' '  who  was  at  the  head  of  all  that  was 
good  and  lovely,  of  all  that  was  beautiful 
and  delightful.  Angra-Mainyus  (Ahriman) 
was  the  "dark  and  gloomy  intelligence," 
that  had  ever  been  Ahura-Mazda's  enemy, 
and  was  resolved  on  foiling  and  tormenting 
him.  Ahura-Mazda  was  "the  creator  of 
life,  the  earthly  and  the  spiritual."  He  had 
made  "the  celestial  bodies,"  "earth,  water, 
and  trees,"  "all  good  creatures,"  and  "all 
good  things."  He  was  "good,"  "holy,  " 
"pure,"  "true,"  "the  holy  god,"  "the 
holiest,"  "the  essence  of  truth,"  "the 
father  of  truth,"  "the  best  being  of  all," 
' '  the  master  of  purity. ' '  He  was  supremely 
happy  and  possessed  e^•ery  blessing — 
"  health,  wealth,  virtue,  wisdom,  immortal- 
ity." From  Ahura-Mazda  proceeded  all 
good  to  mankind.  He  rewarded  the  good 
by  granting  them  everlasting  happine.ss,  and 
punished  the  bad. 

Angra-Mainyus  was  the  author  of  all  that 
was  evil,  and  had  been  engaged  in  constant 
warfare  with  Ahura-Mazda.  He  corrupted 
and  ruined  the  good  things  created  by 
Ahura-Mazda.  He  was  the  di.spen.ser  of 
moral  and  phy.sical  evils.  He  blasted  the 
earth  with  barrenness,  made  it  produce 
thorns,  thistles  and  poisonous  plants.  He 
sent  the  earthquake,  the  tempest,  the  hail, 
the  thunder-bolt.  He  caused  disease  and 
death,  famine  and  pestilence,  wars  and  tu- 
mults. He  was  the  inventor  of  witchraft, 
murder,  unbelief,  cannibalism,  etc.  He  cre- 
ated ferocious  wild  beasts,  serpents,  toads, 
mice,  hornets,  mo.squitoes,  etc.  He  coutin- 
ludU-  incited  the  bad  against  the  good,  and 
sought  by  every  device  to  give  vice  the  vic- 
tory over  virtue.  Ahura-Mazda  could  not 
always  defeat  or  baffle  him. 

Zoroaster's  religion  was  strictly  free  from 
idolatr>-.  The  only  emblems  were  a  winged 
circle  with  a  human  figure,  robed  and  wear- 
ing a  tiara — a  symbol  of  Ahura-Mazda;  and  a 
four-winged  figure  at  Murgab,  the  ancient 


ZOROASTRIANISM   AND    A/A(;/SM. 


257 


Pasargadae,  the  early  capital  of  Persia,  repre- 
senting Sraosha,  orSerosh — "the  good,  tall, 
fair  Serosh  '  '■ — who  in  the  Zoroastrian  system 
corresponds  with  the  Archangel  Michael  in 
the  Christian.  The  great  Persian  king, 
Darius  Hystaspes,  placed  the  emblems  of 
Ahura-Mazda  and  Mitlira  in  prominent 
places  on  the  sculptured  tablet  abo\'e  his 
tomb,  as  did  all  the  later  monarchs  of  his 
race  whose  sepulchers  are  yet  to  be  seen. 
Artaxerxes  Mnemon  put  the  image  of 
Mithra  in  the  temple  attached  to  the  royal 
palace  at  Susa,  and  in  his  inscriptions  unites 
Mithra  and  Ahura-Mazda,  prajing  for  their 
joint  protection.  Artaxerxes  Ochus  does 
the  same  a  little  later.  The  jiortions  of  the 
Zend-Avesta  composed  at  this  period  ob- 
ser\-ed  the  same  pradlice.  Ahura-Mazda 
and  Mithra  are  called  "the  two  great  ones," 
"the  two  great,  imperishable  and  pure." 

Man  was  in  duty  bound  to  implicitly  obey 
his  creator,  the  Good  Being,  Ahura-Mazda, 
and  to  battle  earnestly  against  Angra- 
Mainyus  and  his  evil  creatures.  He  was  to 
be  pious,  pure,  truthful  and  industrious. 
He  was  to  acknowledge  Ahura-Mazda  as 
the  One  True  God,  and  to  reverence  the 
Amesha-Spentas  and  the  Izeds,  or  lower 
angels.  He  was  to  worship  by  prayers, 
praises,  thanksgivings,  singing  of  hymns, 
sacrifices  of  animals,  and  the  occasional 
ceremony  of  the  Haoma,  or  Horaa.  This 
was  the  extradlion  of  the  juice  of  the  Homa 
plant  by  the  priests  while  reciting  prayers, 
the  formal  presentation  of  the  liquid  ex- 
tracted to  the  sacrificial  fire,  the  consump- 
tion of  a  small  part  of  it  bj-  the  officiating 
priests,  and  the  division  of  the  most  of  it 
among  the  worshipers.  The  horse  was  con- 
sidered the  best  sacrificial  victim,  but  oxen, 
sheep  and  goats  were  also  ofiFered.  The 
animal  being  brought  before  an  altar  on 
which  the  sacred  fire  was  burning,  believed 
to  have  been  originally  kindled  from  heaven, 
was  there  killed  by  a  priest,  who  showed 
some  of  the  flesh  to  the  sacrificial  fire,  after 
which  the  \'i(5lim  was  cooked  and  eaten  by 
the  priests  and  worshipers  at  a  solemn  meal. 

Outward  purity  was  enforced  by  numer- 
ous external  observances.     All  impure  adls, 


impure  words  and  impure  thoughts  were  to 
be  abstained  from.  Ahura-Mazda,  "the 
pure,  the  master  of  purity,"  would  not  tol- 
erate impurity  in  his  votaries.  Man  was 
placed  on  earth  to  preserve  Ahura-Mazda's 
"good  creation,"  which  could  only  be  done 
by  carefully  tilling  the  soil,  eradicating  the 
thorns  and  weeds  sent  by  Angra-Mainyus, 
and  reclaiming  the  tracts  which  that  Evil 
Being  had  cursed  with  barrenness.  The 
cultivation  of  the  soil  was  thus  a  religious 
duty,  and  all  were  required  to  perform  agri- 
cultural labors;  and  either  as  proprietor, 
farmer  or  laborer,  each  Zoroastrian  was 
obliged  to  "further  the  works  of  life"  by 
tillage  of  the  soil. 

Truth  was  another  duty  inculcated  earn- 
estly by  the  Zoroastrian  creed.  Herodotus 
tells  us  that  ' '  the  Persian  youth  are  taught 
three  things  only;  to  ride  the  horse,  to  draw 
the  bow,  and  to  speak  the  truth."  Ahura- 
Mazda  was  the  "true  spirit,"  and  the  chief 
of  the  AmSsha-Spentas  was  Asha-vahista, 
"the  best  truths  The  Zend-Avesta  and 
the  Persian  cuneifonn  inscriptions  hold  up 
Druj,  "falsehood,"  to  detestation,  "as  the 
basest,  the  most  contemptible  and  the  most 
pernicious  of  vices." 

After  a  time  the  early  Iranian  religion  be- 
came corrupted  by  the  admixture  of  foreign 
superstitions.  The  followers  of  Zoroaster, 
spreading  themselves  from  their  primeval 
seat  on  the  Oxus  over  the  regions  to  the 
.south  and  south-west  of  the  Caspian  Sea, 
came  into  contact  with  a  religious  system 
vastly  different  from  that  which  they  had 
previously  professed,  yet  capable  of  being 
easily  fused  with  it.  This  was  Magism,  or 
the  worship  of  the  elements.  The  primitive 
inhabitants  of  Armenia,  Cappadocia  and  the 
Zagros  mountain-rauge,  had,  under  circum- 
stances to  us  unknown,  developed  this  sj'S- 
tem  of  religion,  associating  with  its  tenets  a 
priest-caste  claiming  prophetic  powers  and  a 
highly  sacerdotal  character.  The  essentials 
of  Magism  were  the  four  elements  of  Fire, 
Air,  Earth  and  Water,  which  were  regarded 
as  the  only  proper  objects  of  human  adora- 
tion. Personal  gods,  temples,  shrines  and 
images  were  rejedled.     The  worshipers  rev- 


258 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  } '. — MEDIA. 


erenced  not  the  powers  presiding  over  the 
elements  of  nature,  but  the  elements  them- 
selves. Fire,  the  great  ethereal  principle 
and  the  most  powerful  agent,  was  specially 
regarded ;  and  on  the  Magian  fire-altars  the 
sacred  flame,  usually  considered  to  have 
been  kindled  from  heaven,  was  kept  con- 
stantly burning  year  in  and  year  out  by 
bands  of  priests,  whose  special  duty  it  was 
to  see  that  the  sacred  spark  was  never  per- 
mitted to  die  out.  It  was  a  capital  offense 
to  defile  the  altar  by  blowing  the  fire  with 
one's  breath,  and  it  was  just  as  odious  to 
burn  a  corpse.  Only  a  small  part  of  the 
fat  of  the  vidlims  for  sacrifice  was  consumed 
in  the  flames.  Water  was  reverenced  next 
to  fire.  Sacrifice  was  offered  to  rivers,  lakes 
and  fountains,  the  vidtim  being  brought 
near  to  them  and  then  killed,  the  greatest 
care  being  taken  that  not  a  drop  of  blood 
should  touch  the  water  and  pollute  it.  No 
refuse  was  permitted  to  be  thrown  into  a 
river,  nor  was  it  lawful  to  wash  one's  hands 
in  one.  The  earth  was  reverenced  by  means 
of  sacrifice,  and  by  abstaining  from  the 
common  manner  of  burying  the  dead.  He- 
rodotus and  Strabo  are  our  main  authorities 
for  this  account  of  Magism. 

The  Magian  prie.st-caste  held  a  high  rank. 
A  priest  always  mediated  between  the 
Deity  and  the  worshiper,  and  inten'ened  in 
every  rite  of  religion.  The  Magus  prepared 
the  sacrificial  vicftim  and  .slew  it,  chanted 
the  mystic  strain  giving  the  sacrifice  all  its 
force,  poured  the  propitiatory  libation  of 
oil,  milk  and  honey  on  the  ground,  and  held 
the  bundle  of  thin  tamarisk  twigs,  the  bar- 
som  {barcsma)  of  the  later  books  of  the 
Zend-Avesta,  the  u.se  of  which  was  neces- 
sary to  all  sacrificial  ceremonies.  "Claim- 
ing supernatural  powers,  they  explained 
omens,  expounded  dreams,  and  by  means  of 
a  certain  mysterions  manipulation  of  the 
barsom,  'or  bundle  of  tamarisk  twigs,  ar- 
rived at  a  knowledge  of  future  events, 
which  they  would  sometimes  condescend 
to  communicate  to  the  pious  inquirer." 

With  all  these  pretensions,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  Magi  assumed  a  lofty  de- 
meanor, a  stately  dress,  and  surroundings 


of  ceremonial  splendor.  Attired  in  white 
robes,  and  wearing  upon  their  heads  tall 
felt  caps,  with  long  lappets  at  the  sides, 
which  are  said  to  have  hidden  the  jaw  and 
the  lips,  the  Magi,  with  a  barsom  in  their 
hands,  marched  in  procession  to  the  fire- 
altars,  around  which  they  performed  their 
magical  incantations  for  an  hour  at  a  time. 
The  credulous  masses,  impressed  by  such 
scenes  and  imposed  upon  by  the  claims  of 
the  Magi  to  supernatural  powers,  paid  the 
priest-caste  willing  homage.  The  kings 
and  chiefs  consulted  them;  and  when  the 
Iranians,  in  their  westward  migrations,  came 
into  contacft  with  the  nations  professing  Ma- 
gism, they  found  the  Magian  priesthood  all- 
powerful  among  most  of  the  Western  Asian 
races. 

The  followers  of  Zoroaster  had  at  first 
been  intolerant  and  exclusive,  and  regarded 
the  faith  of  their  Aryan  kinsmen,  the  Sans- 
kritic  Hindoos,  with  aversion  and  contempt. 

They  had  fiercely  opposed  idolatry,  and 
hated  with  deep  animosity  every  religion 
but  their  own.  But  in  the  course  of  ages 
these  feelings  had  become  lax,  and  the  early 
religious  fen'or  gradually  died  away;  and  in 
its  .stead  "an  impre.ssible  and  imitative  spirit 
had  developed  it.self. " 

Thus  Zoroastrianism,  in  its  contadl  with 
Magism,  was  impres.sed  favorably,  and  the 
result  was  the  development  of  a  new  system 
by  the  fusion  of  the  two.  The  chief  tenets 
of  the  two  sj-stems  harmonized  and  were 
thoroughly  compatible.  Thus  the  Iranians, 
though  holding  fast  to  their  original  creed, 
adopted  the  main  points  of  the  Magian  faith 
and  all  the  more  remarkable  practices  and 
customs  of  Magism.  This  fusion  of  Zoro- 
astrianism and  Magism  occurred  in  Media. 
The  Magi  became  a  Median  tribe  and  the 
priest-caste  of  the  Medes.  Worship  of  the 
elements,  divination  by  means  of  the  bar- 
som, expounding  of  dreams,  incantations  at 
fire-altars,  sacrifices  at  which  a  Magus  offi- 
ciated, were  made  a  part  of  the  Zoroastrian 
creed.  Thus  a  mixed  religious  system  was 
developed,  which  finally  triumphed  over 
pure  Zoroastrianism  after  a  long  struggle. 
The  Persians,  sometime  after  their  conquest 


ZOROASTRIANISM   AND    MAC, ISM. 


259 


of  the  Medes,  adopted  the  new  faith,  ac- 
cepted the  Magian  priesthood,  and  attended 
the  ceremonies  at  the  fire-altars. 

The  introduction  of  the  Magian  creed  by 
the  Zoroastrians  led  to  a  singular  pradtice 
regarding  the  disposition  of  the  dead.  It 
became  unlawful  to  bum  dead  bodies,  be- 
cause that  would  pollute  fire;  or  to  bury 
them,  as  that  would  pollute  the  earth;  or  to 
cast  them  into  a  river,  as  that  would  pollute 
water;  or  to  place  them  in  a  tomb,  or  in  a 
sarcophagus,  as  that  would  pollute  the  air. 
The  dead  were  therefore  removed  to  a  soli- 
tary place  to  be  devoured  by  beasts  and 
birds  of  pre)- — wolves,  jackals,  foxes,  crows, 
ravens  and  vultures.  This,  as  the  orthodox 
pratftice,  was  employed  by  the  Magi  in  the 
disposal  of  their  own  dead,  and  was  ur- 
gently recommended  to  others.  Those  who 
would  not  adopt  this  custom  were  allowed 
to  coat  the  dead  bodies  of  their  friends  with 
wax  and  then  bury  them,  thus  avoiding  the 
pollution  of  the  earth  by  preventing  direcfl 
conta(ft  between  it  and  the  corpse. 

Saj'S  Rawlinson,  concerning  the  fusion  of 
Zoroastrianism  with  Magism: 

"The  mixed  religion  thus  constituted, 
though  less  elevated  and  less  pure  than  the 
original  Zoroastrian  creed,  must  be  pro- 
nounced to  have  possessed  a  certain  lofti- 
ness and  picfluresqueness  which  suited  it  to 
become  the  religion  of  a  great  and  splendid 
monarch)-.  The  my.sterious  fire-altars  upon 
the  mountain-tops,  with  their  prestige  of  a 
remote  antiquity — the  ever-buming  flame 
believed  to  have  been  kindled  from  on  high 
— the  worship  in  the  open  air  under  the  blue 
canopy  of  heaven — the  long  troops  of  Ma- 
gians  in  their  white  robes,  with  their 
strange  caps,  and  their  mystic  wands — the 
frequent  prayers,  the  abundant  sacrifices,  the 
low  incantations — the  suppo.sed  prophetic 
powers  of  the  priest-caste — all  this  together 
constituted  an  imposing  whole  at  once  to  the 
eye  and  to  the  mind,  and  was  calculated  to 
give  additional  grandeur  to  the  civil  system 
that  should  be  allied  with  it.  Pure  Zoroas- 
trianism was  too  spiritual  to  coalesce  readily 
with  Oriental  luxury  and  magnificence,  or 
to  lend  strength  to  a  government  based  on 


the  principles  of  Asiatic  despotism.  Magism 
furnished  a  hierarchy  to  support  the  throne 
and  add  splendor  and  dignity  to  the  court, 
while  it  overawed  the  subjecft  class  by  its 
supposed  possession  of  supernatural  powers 
and  of  the  right  of  mediating  between  man 
and  God.  It  supplied  a  picturesque  wor- 
.ship,  which  at  once  gratified  the  senses  and 
excited  the  fancy.  It  gave  .scope  to  man's 
passion  for  the  niar\-elous  by  its  incanta- 
tions, its  divining-rods,  its  omen-reading, 
and  its  dream-expoiniding.  It  gratified  the 
religious  scrupulosity  which  finds  a  pleasure 
in  making  to  itself  difficulties,  by  the  dis- 
allowance of  a  thou.sand  natural  acts,  and 
the  imposition  of  numberless  rules  for  ex- 
ternal purity.  At  the  same  time  it  gave  no 
offense  to  the  anti-idolatrous  spirit  in  which 
the  Iranians  had  alwaj-s  gloried,  but  upheld 
and  encouraged  the  iconoclasm  which  they 
had  previously  practiced.  It  thus  blended 
easily  with  the  previous  creed  of  the  Iran- 
ian people,  and  produced  an  amalgam  that 
has  shown  a  surprising  vitalitj',  having  lasted 
above  two  thousand  \-ears — from  the  time 
of  Xerxes,  the  son  of  Darius  Hystaspes  (B. 
C.  485-465)  to  the  present  day." 

The  follow-ing  passages  are  from  the  oldest 
part  of  the  Avesta,  the  Gathas: 

"Good  is  the  thought,  good  the  speech, 
good  the  work  of  the  pure  Zarathustra. ' ' 

"I  desire  by  my  prayer  with  uplifted 
hands  this  joy — the  pure  works  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  Mazda  ...  a  disposition  to  perform 
good  adlions  .  .  .  and  pure  gifts  for  both 
worlds,  the  bodily  and  spiritual." 

' '  I   have   intrusted   my  soul   to   Heaven 
.    .    .  and  I  will  teach  what  is  pure  so  long 
as  I  can." 

"I  keep  forever  purity  and  good-minded- 
ness.  Teach  thou  me,  Ahura-Mazda,  out 
of  thyself;  from  heaven;  by  lh>-  mouth, 
whereby  the  world  first  aro.se." 

"Thee  have  I  thought,  O  Mazda,  as  the 
first,  to  prai.se  with  the  soul  .  .  .  active 
Creator  .  .  .  Lord  of  the  worlds  .  .  .  Lord 
of  good  things  .  .  .  the  first  fashioner.  .  . 
who  made  the  pure  creation  .  .  .  who  up- 
holds the  best  soul  with  his  understanding." 

"I  praise  Ahura-Mazda,  who  has  created 


26o 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— MEDIA. 


cattle,  created  the  water  and  good  trees,  the 
splendor  of  light,  the  earth  and  all  good. 
We  praise  the  Fravashis  of  the  pure  men 
and  women — whatever  is  fairest,  purest, 
immortal." 

"We  honor  the  good  spirit,  the  good 
kingdom,  the  good  law — all  that  is  good." 

' '  Here  we  praise  the  soul  and  body  of  the 
Bull,  then  our  own  souls,  the  souls  of  the 
cattle  which  desire  to  maintain  us  in  life 
.  .  .  the  good  men  and  women  .  .  .  the 
abode  of  the  water  .  .  .  the  meeting  and 
parting  of  the  wa\-s  .  .  .  the  mountains 
which  make  the  waters  flow  .  .  .  the  strong 
wind  created  b}-  Ahura-Mazda  .  .  .  the 
Haoma,  giver  of  increase,  far  from  death." 

"  Now  give  ear  to  me,  and  hear!  the  Wise 
Ones  have  created  all.  Evil  docftrine  shall 
not  again  destroy  the  world." 

' '  In  the  beginning,  the  two  heavenly 
Ones  spoke — the  Good  to  the  Evil — thus: 
'  Our  souls,  doctrines,  words,  works,  do  not 
unite  together.'  " 

"How  shall  I  satisfy  thee,  O  Mazda,  I, 
who  have  little  wealth,  few  men?  How 
may  I  exalt  thee  according  to  \\\\  wish! 
...  I  will  be  contented  with  your  desires; 
this  is  the  decision  of  my  understanding 
and  of  my  soul. ' ' 

The  following  is  from  the  Khordah- Avesta : 

' '  In  the  name  of  God,  the  gi\"er,  forgiver, 
rich  in  love,  prai.se  be  to  the  name  of  Or- 
mazd,  the  God  with  the  name,  '  Who  always 
was,  ■  always  is,  and  alwaj's  will  be ' ;  the 
heavenly  amongst  the  heavenly,  with  the 
name  'From  whom  alone  is  derived  rule.' 
Ormazd  is  the  greatest  ruler,  mighty,  wise, 
creator,  supporter,  refuge,  defender,  com- 
pleter of  good  works,  overseer,  pure,  good, 
and  just. 

"With  all  strength  (bring  I)  thanks;  to 
the  great  among  beings,  who  created  and 
destroyed,  and  through  his  own  determina- 
tion of  time,  strength,  wisdom,  is  higher 
than  the  six  Amshaspands,  the  circumfer- 
ence of  heaven,  the  .shining  sun,  the  bril- 
liant moon,  the  wind,  the  water,  the  fire, 
the  earth,  the  trees,  the  cattle,  the  metals, 
mankind. 

"Offering  atid   praise   to    that  Lord,  the 


completer  of  good  works,  who  made  men 
greater  than  all  earthly  beings,  and  through 
the  gift  of  speech  created  them  to  rule  the 
creatures  as  warriors  against  the  Daevas. 

"Prai.se  the  omniscience  of  God,  who 
hath  sent  through  the  holy  Zarathustra 
peace  for  the  creatures,  the  wisdom  of  the 
law — the  enlightening  derived  from  the 
heavenly  understanding,  and  heard  with 
the  ears — wisdom  and  guidance  for  all  be- 
ings who  are,  were,  and  will  be,  (and)  the 
wisdom  of  wisdoms;  which  effedls  freedom 
from  hell  for  the  soul  at  the  bridge,  and 
leads  it  over  to  that  Paradise,  the  brilliant, 
sweet-.smelling  of  the  pure. 

"All  good  do  I  accept  at  thy  command, 
O  God,  and  think,  speak,  and  do  it.  I  be- 
lieve in  the  pure  law;  by  every  good  work 
seek  I  forgiveness  for  all  sins.  I  keep  pure 
for  m3'.self  the  ser\-iceable  work  and  absti- 
nence from  the  unprofitable.  I  keep  pure 
the  six  powers — thought,  speech,  work, 
memory,  mind,  and  understanding.  Accord- 
ing to  thy  will  am  I  able  to  accomplish,  O 
accomplisher  of  good,  th}-  honor,  with  good 
thoughts,  good  words,  good  works. 

"I  enter  on  the  shining  way  to  Paradi.se; 
may  the  fearful  terror  of  hell  not  o\'ercome 
me!  May  I  step  over  the  bridge  Chinevat, 
may  I  attain  Paradise,  with  much  perfume, 
and  all  enjoyments,  and  all  brightness. 

"Prai.se  to  the  0\'erseer,  the  Lord,  who 
rewards  those  who  accomplish  good  deeds 
according  to  his  own  wi.sh,  purifies  at  last 
the  oI)edient,  and  at  last  purifies  even  the 
wicked  one  of  hell.  All  prai.se  be  to  the 
creator,  Ormazd,  the  all-wise,  mighty,  rich 
in  might;  to  the  seven  Amshaspands;  to 
Ized  Bahrani,  the  victorious  annihilator  of 
foes. ' ' 

The  following  is  a  Confession  or  Patet: 

"I  repent  of  all  sins.  All  wicked  thoughts, 
words,  and  works  which  I  have  meditated 
in  the  world,  corporeal,  spiritual,  earthly, 
and  heavenly,  I  repent  of,  in  your  presence, 
}-e  believers.  O  Lord,  pardon  through  the 
three  words. 

"I  confess  mj^self  a  Mazdayagnian,  a  Zar- 
athustrian,  an  opponent  of  the  Daevas,  de- 
voted to  belief  in  Ahura,  for  praise,  adora- 


ZOROASTRIANISM   AND    AfAG/SM. 


261 


lion,  satisfaction,  and  laud.  As  it  is  tlie  will 
of  God,  let  the  Za6ta  say  to  me,  Thus  an- 
nounces the  Lord,  the  Pure  out  of  Holiness, 
let  the  wise  speak. 

"I  praise  all  good  thoughts,  words,  and 
works,  through  thought,  word,  and  deed.  I 
curse  all  evil  thoughts,  words,  and  works 
away  from  thought,  word,  and  deed.  I  lay 
hold  on  all  good  thoughts,  words,  and  works, 
with  thoughts,  words,  and  works,  /.  c,  I 
perform  good  actions,  I  dismiss  all  evil 
thoughts,  words,  and  works,  from  thoughts, 
words,  and  works,  i.  c,  I  commit  no  sins. 

"  I  give  to  you,  ye  who  are  Amshaspands, 
offering  and  praise,  with  the  heart,  with  the 
body,  with  my  own  vital  powers,  body  and 
soul.  The  whole  powers  which  I  possess,  I 
possess  in  dependence  on  the  Yazatas.  To 
possess  in  dependence  upon  the  Yazatas 
means  (as  much  as)  this:  if  anj-thing  happen 
so  that  it  behoves  to  give  the  body  for  the 
sake  of  the  soul,  I  give  it  to  them. 

' '  I  praise  the  best  purity,  I  hunt  away 
the  Devs,  I  am  thankful  for  the  good  of  the 
Creator  Ormazd,  with  the  opposition  and 
unrighteousness  which  come  from  Gana- 
mainyo,  am  I  contented  and  agreed  in  the 
hope  of  the  resurrection.  The  Zarathustrian 
law  created  by  Ormazd  I  take  as  a  plummet. 
For  the  sake  of  this  way  I  repent  of  all  sins. 

"I  repent  of  the  sins  which  can  lay  hold 
of  the  character  of  men,  or  which  have  laid 
hold  of  my  character,  small  and  great  which 
are  committed  amongst  men,  the  meanest 
sins  as  much  as  is  (andj  can  be,  yet  more 
than  this,  namely,  all  evil  thoughts,  words, 
and  works  which  (I  have  committed)  for  the 
sake  of  others,  or  others  for  my  sake,  or  if 
the  hard  sin  has  seized  the  charadter  of 
an  evil-doer  on  my  account — such  sins, 
thoughts,  words,  and  works,  corporeal,  men- 
tal, earthly,  heavenly,  I  repent  of  with  the 
three  words:  pardon,  O  Lord,  I  repent  of  the 
sins  with  Patet. 

"The  sins  against  father,  mother,  sister, 
brother,  wife,  child,  again.st  .spouses,  against 
the  superiors,  against  \\\y  own  relations, 
against  those  living  with  me.  against  those 
who  possess  equal  property,  against  the 
neighbors,   against   the    inhabitants  of  the 


same  town,  against  servants,  every  un- 
righteousness through  which  I  have  been 
amongst  sinners — of  these  sins  repent  I  with 
thoughts,  words,  and  works,  corporeal  as 
spiritual,  earthly  as  heavenly,  with  the 
three  words:  pardon,  O  Lord,  I  repent  of 
sins. 

"The  defilement  with  dirt  and  corpses, 
the  bringing  of  dirt  and  corpses  to  the  water 
and  fire,  or  the  bringing  of  fire  and  water  to 
dirt  and  corpses;  the  omission  of  reciting  the 
Avesta  in  mind,  of  strewing  about  hair, 
nails  and  toothpicks,  of  not  washing  the 
hands,  all  the  rest  which  belongs  to  the 
category  of  dirt  and  corpses,  if  I  have  there- 
by come  among  the  sinners,  so  repent  I  of 
all  these  sins  with  thoughts,  words,  and 
works,  corporeal  as  spiritual,  earthly  as 
heavenly,  with  the  three  words:  pardon,  O 
Lord,  I  repent  of  sin. 

' '  That  which  was  the  wish  of  Ormazd  the 
Creator,  and  I  ought  to  have  thought,  and 
have  not  thought,  what  I  ought  to  have 
spoken  and  have  not  spoken,  what  I  ought 
to  have  done  and  have  not  done;  of  these 
sins  repent  I  with  thoughts,  words,  and 
works,"  etc. 

"That  which  was  the  wi.sh  of  Ahriman, 
and  I  ought  not  to  have  thought  and  yet 
have  thought,  what  I  ought  not  to  have 
spoken  and  yet  have  spoken,  what  I  ought 
not  to  have  done  and  yet  have  done;  of  these 
sins  I  repent,"  etc. 

"Of  all  and  every  kind  of  sin  which  I 
committed  against  the  creatures  of  Ormazd, 
as  stars,  moon,  sun,  and  the  red  burning 
fire,  the  dog,  the  birds,  the  five  kinds  of 
animals,  the  other  good  creatures  which  are 
the  property  of  Ormazd,  between  earth  and 
heaven,  if  I  have  become  a  sinner  against 
any  of  these,  I  repent,"  etc. 

"Of  pride,  haughtiness,  covetousness, 
slandering  the  dead,  anger,  envy,  the  evil 
eye,  shamelessness,  looking  at  with  evil  in- 
tent, looking  at  with  evil  concupiscence, 
stiff- neckedness,  discontent  with  the  godly 
arrangements,  self-willedness,  sloth,  despis- 
ing others,  mixing  in  strange  matters,  unbe- 
lief, opposing  the  Divine  powers,  false  wit- 
ness, false  judgment,  idol-wor.ship,  running 


262 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— MEDIA. 


naked,  running  with  one  shoe,  the  breaking 
of  the  low  (midday)  prayer,  the  omission  of 
the  (raiddaj-)  prayer,  theft,  robbery,  whore- 
dom, witchcraft,  worshiping  with  sorcerers, 
unchastity,  tearing  the  hair,  as  well  as  all 
other  kinds  of  sin  which  are  enumerated  in 
this  Patet,  or  not  enumerated,  which  I  am 
aware  of,  or  not  aware  of  which  are  appointed 
or  not  appointed,  which  I  should  have  be- 
wailed with  obedience  before  the  Lord,  and 
have  not  bewailed — of  these  sins  repent  I 
with  thoughts,  words,  and  works,  corporeal 
as  spiritual,  earthly  as  heavenly.  O  Lord, 
pardon,  I  repent  with  the  three  words,  with 
Patet. 

"  If  I  have  taken  on  myself  the  Patet  for 
any  one  and  have  not  performed  it,  and  mis- 
fortune has  thereby  come  upon  his  soul  or 
his  descendants,  I  repent  of  the  sin  for  every 
one  with  thoughts,"  etc. 

"With  all  good  deeds  am  I  in  agreement, 
with  all  sins  am  I  not  in  agreement,  for  the 
good  am  I  thankful,  with  iniquity  am  I  con- 
tented. With  the  punishment  at  the  bridge, 
with  the  bonds  and  tormentings  and  chas- 
tisements of  the  mighty  of  the  law,  with  the 
puni.shment  of  the  three  nights  (after)  the 
fifty-seven  j^ears  am  I  contented  and  sat- 
isfied." 

The  following  is  a  hymn  to  a  star: 

"The  starTistrya  praise  we,  the  shining, 
majestic,  with  pleasant  good  dwelling,  light, 
shining  conspicuous,  going  around,  health- 
ful, bestowing  joy,  great,  going  round  about 
from  afar,  with  shining  beams,  the  pure,  and 
the  water  which  makes  broad  .seas,  good,  far- 
famed,  the  name  of  the  bull  created  by 
Mazda,  the  strong  kingly  majesty,  and  the 
F'ravashi  of  the  holy  pure,  Zarathustra. 

"For  his  brightness,  for  his  majesty,  will 
I  praise  him,  the  star  Tistrya,  with  audible 
prai.se.  We  prai.se  the  star  Tistrya,  the  brill- 
iant, majestic,  with  offerings,  with  Haoma 
bound  with  flesh,  with  Mauthra  which  gives 
wisdom  to  the  tongue,  with  word  and  deed, 
with  offerings  with  right-spoken  speech." 

"  The  star  Tistrya,  the  brilliant,  majestic, 
we  praise,  who  glides  .so  softly  to  the  .sea 
like  an  arrow,  who  follows  the  heavenly  will, 
who  is  a  terrible  pliant  arrow,  a  \'ery  pliant 


arrow,  worthy  of  honor  among  those  worthy 
of  honor,  who  comes  from  the  damp  moun- 
tain to  the  shining  mountain." 

The  following  is  a  hymn  to  Mithra: 

"  Mithra,  whose  long  arms  grasp  for- 
wards here  with  Mithra  strength;  that  which 
is  in  Eastern  India  he  seizes,  and  that  which 
[is]  in  the  western  he  smites,  and  what  is  on 
the  steppes  of  Rauha,  and  what  is  at  the 
ends  of  this  earth. 

"Thou,  O  Mithra,  dost  .seize  the.se,  reach- 
ing out  thy  arms.  The  unrighteous  de- 
stroj-ed  through  the  just  is  gloomj-  in  soul. 
Thus  thinks  the  unrighteous:  Mithra,  the 
artless,  does  not  see  all  these  evil  deeds,  all 
these  lies. 

"  But  I  think  in  my  soul:  No  earthly  man 
with  a  hundred-fold  strength  thinks  so  much 
evil  as  Mithra  with  heavenly  strength  thinks 
good.  No  earthly  man  with  a  hundred- 
fold strength  speaks  so  much  evil  as  Mithra 
with  heavenly  .strength  speaks  good.  No 
earthly  man  with  a  hundred-fold  strength 
does  .so  much  evil  as  Mithra  with  heavenl}' 
strength  does  good. 

"With  no  earthly  man  is  the  hundred- 
fold greater  heavenly  understanding  allied 
as  the  heavenly  understanding  allies  it.self 
to  the  heavenly  Mithra,  the  heavenly.  No 
earthly  man  with  a  hundred- fold  strength 
hears  with  the  ears  as  the  heavenly  Mithra, 
who  pos.sesses  a  hundred  strengths,  sees 
even,'  liar.  Mightily  goes  forward  Mithra, 
powerful  in  rule  marches  he  onwards;  fair 
visual  power,  shining  from  afar,  gives  he  to 
the  eyes. ' ' 

The  following  are  inscriptions  at  Persepo- 
lis,  the  Persian  capital; 

"Darius,  the  King,  King  of  Kings,  .son 
of  Hystaspes,  successor  of  the  Ruler  of  the 
World,  Djemchid." 

"Ahura-Mazda  (Ormazd)  is  a  mighty 
God;  who  has  created  the  earth,  the  heaven, 
and  men;  who  has  given  glory  to  men;  who 
has  made  Xerxes  king,  the  ruler  of  man>'. 
I,  Xerxes,  King  of  Kings,  king  of  the  earth 
near  and  far,  son  of  Darius,  an  Achsemenid. 
What  I  have  done  here,  and  what  I  have 
done  elsewhere,  I  have  done  by  the  grace 
of  Ahura-Mazda." 


ZOROASTRIANISM   AND    AfAC/SAf.  263 

The  following  is  one  of  the  Grulias,  and  is  l)y  some  assigned  to  Zoroaster  himself: 
"Now  will  I  speak  anil  ])!oclaini  to  all  who  have  come  to  listen 
Thy  praise,  Aluira-Ma/.da,  anil  thine,  O  Vohn-mano. 
Asha !    I  ask  thai  thy  grace  ni.-iy  appear  in  the  lij^hts  of  heaven. 

Hear  with  yonr  ears  what  is  best,  perceive  with  your  niiuil  what  is  purest, 
So  that  each  man  for  himself  may,  before  the  great  doom  comcth. 
Choose  the  creed  he  prefers.     May  the  wise  ones  be  on  our  side. 

These  two  spirits  are  twins ;  they  made  known  in  times  that  are  bygone 
That  good  and  evil,  in  thought,  and  word,  and  aftion. 
Rightly  decided  between  them  the  good ;  not  so  the  evil. 

When  these  Two  came  together,  first  of  all  they  created 
L,ifc  and  death,  that  at  last  there  might  be  for  such  as  are  evil 
Wretchedness,  but  for  the  good  a  happy  blest  existence. 

Of  these  Two  the  One  who  was  evil  chose  what  was  evil ; 

He  who  was  kind  and  good,  whose  robe  was  the  changeless  Heaven, 

Chose  what  was  right ;  those,  too,  whose  works  pleased  Ahura-Mazda. 

They  could  not  rightly  discern  who  erred  and  worshipped  the  Devas ; 
They  the  Bad  Spirit  chose,  and,  having  held  counsel  together. 
Turned  to  Rapine,  that  so  they  might  make  man's  life  an  afHiClion. 

But  to  the  good  came  might ;  and  with  might  came  wisdom  and  virtue ; 

Armaiti  herself,  the  eternal,  gave  to  their  bodies 

Vigor;  e'eu  thou  wert  enriched  by  the  gifts  she  scattered,  O  Mazda. 

Mazda,  the  time  will  come  when  the  crimes  of  the  bad  shall  be  punished ; 
Then  shall  thy  power  be  displayed  in  fitly  rewarding  the  righteous — 
Them  that  have  bound  and  delivered  up  falsehood  to  Asha  the  Truth-God. 

Let  us  then  be  of  those  who  advance  this  world  and  improve  it, 
O  Ahura-Mazda,  O  Truth-God  bliss  conferring ! 
Let  our  minds  be  ever  there  where  wisdom  abideth  ! 

Then  indeed  shall  be  seen  the  fall  of  pernicious  falsehood ; 
But  in  the  house  where  dwell  Vohu-mano  Mazda,  and  Asha — 
Beautiful  house — shall  be  gathered  forever  such  as  are  worthy. 

O  men,  if  you  but  cling  to  the  precepts  Mazda  has  given. 
Precepts,  which  to  the  bad  are  a  torment,  but  joy  to  the  righteous, 
Then  shall  you  one  day  find  yourselves  vidlorious  through  them." 

Another  specimen  is  from  the  ' '  Yagna, "  or  "  Book  on  Sacrifice, ' '  and  is  probably  some 
centuries  later  than  the  great  bulk  of  the  Gathas : 

"We  worship  .A.hura-Mazda,  the  pure,  the  master  of  purity  : 
We  worship  the  Amesha-Spentas,  possessors  and  givers  of  blessings : 

We  worship  the  whole  creation  of  Him  who  is  True,  the  heavenly, 
With  the  terrestrial,  all  that  supports  the  good  creation, 
.Ml  that  favors  the  spread  of  the  good  Mazd-Va^na  religion. 

We  praise  whatever  is  good  in  thought,  in  word,  or  in  atflion. 
Past  or  future  ;  we  also  keep  clean  whatever  is  excellent. 

O  Ahura-Mazda,  thou  true  and  happy  being ! 

We  strive  both  to  think,  and  to  speak,  and  to  do  whatever  is  fittest 

Both  our  lives  to  preserve,  aud  bring  them  both  to  perfeiflion. 

Holy  spirit  of  earth,  for  our  best  works'  sake,  we  entreat  thee. 
Grant  us  beautiful  fertile  fields — aye,  grant  them  to  all  men. 
Believers  and  unbelievers,  the  wealthy  and  those  that  have  nothing." 


CHAPTER    V. 


THE   BABYLONIAN    EMPIRE. 


SECTION    I.— EXTENT    AND    PRODUCTIONS. 


ABYLONIA  proper  being  al- 
most identical  in  its  situation 
and  territorial  extent  with  the 
old  kingdom  of  Chaldsea,  it 
need  not  be  described  here.  It 
was  located  wholly  west  of  the  Tigris,  and 
consisted  of  two  "vast  plains,  or  flats,  one 
situated  between  the  two  rivers  (the  Tigris 
and  the  Euphrates),  and  thus  forming  the 
lower  portion  of  the  Mesopotamia  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans — the  other  interposed 
between  the  Euphrates  and  Arabia,  a  long 
but  narrow  strip  along  the  right  bank  of 
that  abounding  river."  In  area  it  was 
smaller  than  Scotland  or  Ireland.  The 
country  east  of  the  Tigris  constituted  no 
portion  of  Babj-lonia  proper,  but  was  Ci-s.sia, 
or  Susiana — a  .separate  country'  called  Elam 
by  the  Jews — and  was  occupied  b^-  an  Ars'an 
people.  The  cities  of  Babylonia  have  been 
mentioned  in  connedtion  with  Chaldaea. 

The  small  kingdom  of  Babylonia  sud- 
denly became  the  mistress  of  an  extensive 
empire  in  the  latter  half  of  the  .seventh  cen- 
tury before  Christ.  When  Media  and  Ba- 
bylonia overthrew  Assyria  in  B.  C.  625, 
they  divided  the  Assj'rian  Empire  between 
them,  as  already  related.  Babylonia  ob- 
tained all  that  part  of  the  Assyrian  domin- 
ions west  of  the  Tigris  and  south  of  Ar- 
menia, along  with  Elam,  or  Susiana,  east  of 
the  Lower  Tigris.  Thus  the  countries  in- 
cluded within  the  Eater  Babylonian  Empire, 
besides  Babylonia  proper,  the  heart  of  the 
empire,  were  Elam  (Elymais),  or  Susiana 
(Cissia),  Mesopotamia  proper,  Cilicia,  Syria, 
Phoenicia,  Palestine,   Edom,  Northern  Ara- 


bia and  part  of  Egypt.  There  was  a  great 
variety  of  climate  and  produ(5tions  in  this 
vast  domain.  The  climate,  produdts  and 
animals  of  Babylonia  have  been  mentioned 
and  described  in  our  account  of  Chaldaea. 
The  exceeding  fertility  of  its  soil,  which 
so  richly  rewarded  the  labors  of  the  husband- 
man, have  there  been  noted.  The  testimony 
of  Herodotus  in  that  particular  was  sustained 
by  Theophrastus,  Strabo  and  Pliny,  and  also 
by  Berosus,  who  said:  "The  land  of  the 
Babylonians  produces  wheat  as  an  indig- 
enous plant,  and  has  also  barley,  and 
lentils,  and  vetches,  and  .sesame;  the  banks 
of  the  streams  and  the  marshes  supply  edible 
roots,  called  gongce,  which  have  the  taste  of 
barley  cakes.  Palms,  too,  grow  in  the 
country-,  and  apples,  and  fruit-trees  of  vari- 
ous kinds."  The  chief  article  of  food  for 
the  great  mass  of  the  people  in  Babylonia, 
as  in  Egypt,  was  the  date-palm,  which 
flourished  in  luxuriant  abundance. 

The  produ(5ts  of  Susiana  were  mainly  the 
same  as  those  of  Babylonia  proper;  the  date- 
palm,  wheat  and  barley  growing  in  abun- 
dance. The  palm-tree  also  furnished  building 
timber.  The  modem  Khusistan,  the  ancient 
Susiana,  produces  all  the  fruits  which  thrive 
in  Persia.  In  Northern  Mesopotamia  are 
found  the  walnut,  the  vine  and  pistachio-nut, 
while  good  crops  of  grain,  oranges,  pome- 
granates, and  the  ordinary  fruits  are  grown. 
In  Northern  S>-ria  all  kinds  of  trees  and 
shrubs  grow  in  luxuriance,  while  the  pasture 
is  excellent,  and  nuich  of  the  land  is  adapted 
to  the  growth  of  cotton.  Here  the  Assyrian 
kings  frequently  obtained  timber  for  build- 


C264) 


EXTENT  AND    PRODUCTIONS. 


265 


iug  purposes,  and  here  are  yet  found  dense 
forests  of  oak,  pine,  ilex,  walnuts,  willows, 
poplars,  ash-trees,  birches,  larches  and  locust- 
trees.  Such  wild  shrubs  as  the  oleander, 
the  myrtle,  the  bay,  the  arbutus,  the  clema- 
tis, the  juniper,  and  the  honeysuckle  abound; 
and  such  cultivated  fruit-trees  as  the  orange, 
the  pomegranate,  the  pistachio-nut,  the  vine, 
the  olive  and  the  mulberry  also  thrive.  The 
adis,  an  excellent  pea,  and  the  Lycopcrdon, 
or  wild  potato,  grow  in  the  vicinty  of 
Aleppo.  The  castor-oil  plant  is  cultivated 
in  the  plain  of  Edib.  Melons,  cucumbers 
and  most  of  the  common  vegetables  flourish 
in  abundance  all  over  Syria. 

In  Southern  Syria  and  Palestine  most  of 
the  same  vegetable  producftions  occur.  The 
date-palm  flourishes  in  Syria  as  far  as  Bey- 
reut,  and  formerly  thrived  in  Palestine.  The 
banana  is  also  found  on  the  Syrian  coast. 
The  fig-mulberry,  or  true  sycamore,  also 
thrives  in  Southern  Syria,  as  do  the  jujube, 
the  tamarisk,  the  wild  olive,  the  gum-styrax 
plant,  the  egg-plant,  the  Egyptian  papyrus, 
the  sugar-cane,  the  scarlet  mistletoe,  the 
liquorice  plant,  the  yellow-flowered  acacia, 
and  the  solanum  that  produces  the  ' '  Dead 
Sea  apple."  Here  aLso  flourishes  the  cele- 
brated cedar  of  Lebanon,  several  oaks  and 
junipers,  the  maple,  the  mulberry,  the  ber- 
berry, the  jessamine,  the  ivy,  the  butcher's 
broom,  a  rhododendron,  and  the  gum-traga- 
canth  plant.  The  same  fruits  flourish  in 
Southern  Syria  that  thrive  in  the  North, 
with  the  addition  of  dates,  lemons,  almonds, 
shaddocks  and  limes. 

The  principal  mineral  produ(5ls  of  the 
Babylonian  Empire  were  bitumen,  with  its 
concomitants,  naphtha  and  petroleum,  salt, 
sulpher,  nitre,  copper,  iron,  perhaps  silver, 
and  several  kinds  of  precious  stones.  The 
springs  of  Hit,  or  Is,  were  famous  in  the 
time  of  Herodotus  for  their  great  abun- 
dance of  bitumen,  which  was  likewise  pro-  • 
cured  from  Ardericca  (now  Kir-Ab),  and 
probably  from  Ram  Ormuz,  in  Susiana,  and 
also  from  the  Dead  Sea,  in  Palestine.  Salt 
was  procured  from  the  various  lakes  without 
outlets,  especially  from  the  Sabakhah,  the 
Bahr-el-Melak,  the  Dead  Sea,  and  a  small 
1— 17.-U.  H. 


lake  near  Tadmor,  or  Palmyra.  The  Dead 
Sea  perhaps  also  furnished  sulphur  and 
nitre.  The  hills  of  Palestine  yielded  copper 
and  iron.  Silver  was  prol)ably  found  in 
Anti-Lebanon.  Gems  and  precious  stones 
were  most  probably  procured  from  Susiana, 
and  from  Syria  and  Phoenicia.  Among 
these  precious  stones  were  agates  from  Su.si- 
ana,  amethysts  from  Petra,  alabaster  from 
near  Damascus,  cyanus  from  Phcenicia,  and 
gems  found  in  the  cylinder-seals,  such  as 
cornelian,  rock-crystal,  chalcedony,  onyx, 
jasper,  quartz,  serpentine,  syenite,  ha.'matite, 
green  felspar,  pyrites,  loadstone  and  ama- 
zon-stone,  from  the  various  provinces. 

Building  stone  did  not  exist  in  Babylonia 
and  the  alluvial  districfls  of  Susiana;  but 
abounded  in  other  parts  of  the  empire,  be- 
ing plentiful  in  the  Euphrates  valley  above 
Hit,  in  the  mountain  regions  of  Susiana,  and 
in  S)'ria,  Palestine  and  Phoenicia.  Near  to 
Babylonia  was  limestone.  In  the  vicinity 
of  Haddisah,  on  the  Euphrates,  was  a  sili- 
cious  rock  alternating  with  iron-stone,  and 
in  the  Arabian  desert  were  sandstone  and 
granite.  The  stone  used  in  the  Babylonian 
cities  was  conveyed  down  the  Euphrates,  or 
transported  by  canals  from  the  neighboring 
distridls  of  Arabia.  But  the  inexhaustible 
supply  of  clay  furni.shed  by  their  own  conn- 
try  caused  the  Babylonians  to  prefer  brick 
almost  exclusively  for  building  purposes. 

The  principal  wild  animals  of  the  Baby- 
lonian Empire  were  the  lion,  the  panther, 
or  large  leopard,  the  hunting  leopard,  the 
bear,  the  hyena,  the  wild  ox,  the  buffalo, 
the  wild  ass,  the  stag,  the  antelope,  the 
ibex,  or  wild  goat,  the  wild  sheep,  the  wild 
boar,  the  wolf,  the  jackal,  the  fox,  the  hare 
and  the  rabbit.  Other  wild  animals  were 
the  lynx,  the  wild  cat,  the  ratel,  the  sable, 
the  genet,  the  badger,  the  otter,  the  beaver, 
the  polecat,  the  jerboa,  the  rat,  the  mouse, 
the  mannot,  the  porcupine,  the  squirrel  and 
the  alligator.  Great  varieties  of  birds,  in- 
cluding eagles,  vultures,  falcons,  owls, 
hawks,  crows,  and  many  kinds  of  small 
birds,  abounded.  Reptiles  of  many  varieties 
prevailed.  Fi.sh  abounded  in  the  Chaldrcan 
marshes  and  in  most  of  the  fresh-water  lakes 


266 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  >  \—BAB\  IXINIA. 


and  rivers.  The  domestic  animals  were  the 
camel,  the  horse,  the  mule,  the  ass,  the 
cow,  the  ox,  the  goat,  the  sheep  and  the 
dog. 

The  summer  heat  in  Babylonia  proper,  or 
Chaldcea.  in  Susiana,  or  Elam,  in  Philistia 
and  in  Edom  was  intense,  but  the  winters 
here  were  short  and  mild.  In  Susiana  the  cool 
breezes  from  the  Zagros  mountains  somewhat 
modified  the  heat ;  while  in  Babylonia  the 
sirocco,  or  hot  wind,  from  the  Arabian  desert 
was  at  times  oppressive.  In  Central  Meso- 
potamia, in  the  Euphrates  valley,  in  Syria, 
Palestine  and  Phoenicia,  the  winters  were 
longer  and  colder,  but  the  summer  heat  was 
less  oppressive.  In  the  northern  portion  of 
the  empire,  along  the  flanks  of  the  Masius, 
the  Taurus  and  the  Amanus,  the  climate 
was  like  that  of  Media,  the  summers  being 
milder,  but  the  winters  intensely  severe. 
Thus  a  variety   of  climate  existed  in    the 


Babylonian  Empire;  although  the  region  as 
a  whole  was  the  hottest  and  dryest  outside 
the  tropics,  because  of  the  close  proximity 
of  the  great  Arabian  desert,  the  smallness 
of  the  neighboring  seas,  the  absence  of 
mountains,  and  the  scarcity  of  timber. 

On  the  east  and  north  the  Babylonian 
Empire  was  bounded  by  the  territories  of 
the  great  Median  Empire,  including  Persia 
and  Media  on  the  east,  and  Armenia  and 
Cappadocia  on  the  north.  On  the  south  lay 
the  desert  land  of  Arabia,  and  on  the  we.st 
was  the  Mediterranean  .sea. 

The  great  cities  of  the  empire  outside  of 
Babylonia  itself  were  Jerusalem  and  Sama- 
ria in  Palestine;  Tyre  and  Sidon  iii  Phoe- 
nicia; Damascus  and  Tadmor  in  Syria;  Car- 
chemish,  in  the  land  of  the  Hittites,  on  the 
Euphrates;  Ashdod,  Ascalon,  Ekron  and 
Gaza  in  Philistia;  and  Susa  in  Susiana,  or 
Elam. 


SECTION    II.— POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


HE  history  of  the  Babylonian 
Emjiire  begins  with  Nabopo- 
lassar,  who  ascended  the  throne 
of  Babj'lon  in  B.  C.  625.  We 
have  observed  in  the  history  of 
As.syria,  that  from  the  time  of  Tiglathi-Nin's' 
conquest  of  Chaldsea,  in  B.  C.  1300,  that 
country  sunk  into  a  state  of  comparative  in- 
significance, and  remained,  during  the  whole 
period  of  Assj-rian  ascendency  in  Western 
Asia,  subjedl  to  Assyria,  or  occupied  a 
secondary  po.sition  among  the  Oriental  na- 
tions. The  Assyrians  at  first  governed  Chal- 
daea  from  their  own  capital,  but  they  .soon 
placed  the  country  under  an  A.ssyrian 
dynasty,  over  which  they  claimed  and  exer- 
cised a  sort  of  suzerainty,  but  which  was 
pra(?tically  independent  and  ruled  its  king- 
dom without  interference. 

The  first  monarch  of  the  Assyrian  dynasty 
in  Chakkxa  was  Nkbtichadnezzar  I.,  a  con- 
temporary of  Asshur-ris-ilim,  King  of  As- 
sxria.      Xehuchadnezzar  twice  attacked  Nin- 


eveh; first  by  way  of  the  Diyaleh  and  the 
outlying  Zagros  hills,  the  route  of  the  great 
Persian  military  road  in  subsequent  times; 
and  secondly  by  crossing  direcftly  the  Mes- 
opotamian  plain.  The  Assyrian  records  sa>- 
that  both  these  attacks  were  repulsed,  and 
that  after  his  .second  failure  the  Babylonian 
king  retreated  hastily  back  into  his  own 
dominions.  Tiglath-Pileser  I.,  King  of  As- 
syria, the  son  and  successor  of  A.sshus-ris- 
ilini,  led  an  expedition  into  Babylonia,  then 
ruled  by  MEROD.'VCH-iDniN-AKHi,  the  succes- 
,sor  of  Nebuchadnezzar  I.  After  a  struggle  of 
two  years,  and  taking  Kurri-galzu  (now 
Akkerknf),  the  two  vSipparas,  Opis,  and  even 
Babylon  itself,  Tiglath-Pileser  returned  to 
Assyria,  harassed  on  his  retreat  hy  the 
Babj'lonian  monarch,  who  captured  the  As- 
syrian baggage,  along  with  certain  A,ssyrian 
idols,  which  were  carried  as  trophies  to- 
Babylon.  Babylonia  and  A.ssyria  continued 
at  war  during  the  following  reigns  of  Mkro- 
DACH-SHAPiK-ziKi  in    the    former   country 


POLITIC  A  I.    I  IIS  n  Vv' )  ■. 


267 


and  A.ssluir-l)il-kala  in  the  latter,  without 
any  important  result. 

The  period  of  these  Assyro-Babylonian 
wars  synchronizes  with  the  epoch  of  the 
Judges  in  Israel,  and  was  succeeded  by  an 
interval  of  obscurity  in  the  history  of  both 
Assyria  and  Babylonia.  Assyria  had  sunk 
into  a  declining  condition;  while  Babylonia 
was  prosperous,  and  according  to  the  testi- 
mony of  A.ssliur-izir-pal,  the  great  Assyr- 
ian monarch  of  the  ninth  centur\-  before 
Christ,  conquered  some  of  the  Assyrian  ter- 
ritories, and  according  to  Macrobius  held 
comnumication  with  Egypt. 

But  after  remaining  for  two  centuries  in  a 
state  of  comparative  weakne.ss  and  unim- 
portance, Assyria  entered  upon  another  pe- 
riod of  prosf)erity  and  greatness,  and  made 
Babylonia  feel  the  effedls  of  her  vengeance. 
The  A.SS3  rian  king,  Asshur-izir-pal,  invaded 
Babylonia  about  B.  C.  880,  and  recovered 
the  territories  which  the  Babylonians  had 
held  during  the  period  of  Assyria's  depres- 
sion. A.ssbur-izir-pal's  son  and  successor, 
Shalmaneser  II.,  the  Black  Obelisk  king, 
led  an  expedition  into  Baloylonia  while  that 
country-  was  distradled  bj^  a  civil  war  be- 
tween its  legitimate  sovereig^n,  Merodach- 
SUM-ADIN,  and  his  j^ounger  brother.  Shal- 
maneser took  a  number  of  Babylonian  towns, 
and  was  allowed  to  enter  Babylon  itself  after 
defeating  and  slaj-ing  the  pretender  to  the 
Babylonian  throne;  after  which  he  overran 
Chaldaea,  or  the  district  upon  the  coast, 
which  seems  to  have  been  then  independent 
of  Babylon  and  governed  by  a  number  of 
petty  kings.  The  Chaldaean  chiefs  were 
forced  to  pay  tribute;  and,  having  "struck 
terror  as  far  as  the  .sea, ' '  the  Assyrian  king 
returned  to  his  capital.  Thus  all  of  Babj-- 
lonia  and  Chaldaea  was  again  under  Assyr- 
ian influence;  and  Babylonia  was  once  more 
a  .secondary  power,  dependent  on   Assyria. 

About  B.  C.  821  the  As.syrian  king, 
Shamas-Vul  II.,  the  son  and  successor  of 
Shalmaneser  II.,  invaded  Babj-lonia,  de- 
feated its  king,  Merodach-bel.\tzu-ikbi, 
in  two  pitched  battles,  and  forced  him  to  sub- 
mit to  Ass3'rian  suzerainty;  though  in  the 
last  battle  he  had  been  aided  bv  the  Zimri 


of  -Mount  Zagros,  the  Aranueans  of  the  Eu- 
phrates, and  the  Chaldseans  of  the  South. 
Bal)ylon  remained  under  Assyrian  suprem- 
acy until  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century 
before  Christ,  when  it  is  supposed  that  Pui,, 
seeing  his  opportunity  in  Assyria's  weak- 
ness under  Asshur-dayan  III.,  about  B.  C. 
770,  shook  off  the  hated  yoke  of  Assyria  and 
extended  the  Babylonian  dominion  over  the 
Euphrates  valle\-  and  Western  Mesopotamia, 
whence  he  proceeded  to  extend  his  conquests 
into  Syria  and  Palestine.  But  such  obscur- 
ity rests  upon  Pnl  that  it  is  not  positively 
known  whether  he  was  a  Babylonian  king. 
The  Jewish  Scriptures  call  him  "king  of 
Assyria,"  and  Berosus  represents  him  as 
' '  Chaldaeorum  rex. ' ' 

Soon  after  regaining  its  independence. 
Babylonia  was  disintegrated  into  a  numl:)er 
of  independent  sovereignties — Nabonassar 
governing  Babylon;  Yakiu,  the  father  of 
Merodach-Baladan,  ruling  the  Chaldsean 
coast  region;  and  Nadina,  Zakiru  and  other 
princes  holding  sway  in  pettj-  districts  in 
Northern  Babylonia.  Nabonassar,  who  be- 
came King  of  Babylon  in  B.  C.  747,  is  re- 
garded as  the  restorer  of  Babylonian  inde- 
pendence; and  the  j'ear  of  his  accession, 
known  as  the  ' '  Era  of  Nabonassar, ' '  was 
the  point  from  which  the  Babjdonians  there- 
after reckoned  dates  of  events.  According 
to  Berosus,  Nabonassar  sought  to  obliterate 
the  memory  of  the  previous  epoch  of  Baby- 
lonian subjection  to  Assyria  by  having  "de- 
stro3'ed  the  acts  of  the  kings  who  had  pre- 
ceded him." 

Nabonassar  lived  at  peace  with  the  coii- 
temporarj'  King  of  Assyria,  Tiglath-Pileser 
II.,  who  early  in  his  reign  invaded  the  other 
portions  of  Babylonia  and  Chaldsea,  forcing 
Merodach-Baladan,  the  son  and  successor 
of  Yakin,  to  become  his  tributary-.  Nabo- 
nassar reigned  over  Babylon  fourteen  years, 
from  B.  C.  747  to  B.  C.  733.  It  has  been 
generall}-  believed  that  the  time  of  Nabo- 
nassar's  reign  was  the  .same  as  that  assigned 
by  Herodotus  to  the  reign  of  Semiraniis, 
who,  as  the  wife  or  as  the  mother  of  Nabo- 
nassar, governed  Babylon  on  behalf  of  her 
husband  or  her  son.     But  this  is  a  mere  con- 


268 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y. — BAB  YL  ONI  A . 


je<5lure,  contradicted  by  the  native  records. 
We  have  observed  in  the  historj'  of  Assyria 
that  Semiramis  was  a  Babylonian  princess 
married  to  the  Assyrian  king,  Vul-lush  III., 
who  reigned  from  B.  C.  8io  to  B.  C.  781. 
Nobonassar  was  followed  on  the  Babylonian 
throne  by  Nadius,  who  reigned  only  two 
years,  from  B.  C.  733  to  B.  C.  731.  Na- 
dius is  supposed  to  have  been  one  of  the 
independent  Babylonian  princes  reduced  to 
subjedlion  by  Tiglath-Pileser  I.  in  his  ex- 
pedition into  Babylonia.  Nadius  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Chinzinus  and  PoRUS,  who  jointly 
reigned  from  B.  C.  731  to  B.  C.  726.  Their 
successor  was  Elul^EUs,  identified  with  the 
prince  of  that  name  called  King  of  Tyre  by 
Menander — the  Luliya  of  the  cuneiform  in- 
scriptions ;  but  Rawlinson  considers  this 
theory  a  mere  conjedlure  and  highly  im- 
probable. 

Merodach-Baladan — the  successor  of 
Elulseus,  and  the  son  of  Yakin,  the  prince 
who  established  himself  in  authority  over 
Southern  Babylonia,  the  ancient  Chaldsea, 
and  founded  a  capital  city,  naming  it  after 
himself  Beth-Yakin,  or  Bit- Yakin — inher- 
ited the  dominion  of  Yakin  upon  the  death 
of  the  latter.  Being  forced  to  become 
tributary  to  the  Assyrian  king,  Tiglath- 
Pileser  II.,  he  remained  in  comparative 
obscurity  and  quiet  during  the  reigns  of 
Tiglath-Pile.ser  II.  and  Shalmaneser  IV.  in 
Assyria;  but  when  Sargon  usurped  the  As- 
syrian throne,  B.  C.  721,  Merodach-Baladan 
established  his  sway  over  Babylonia,  of 
which  he  was  recognized  as  king.  It  was 
some  time  during  his  twelve  years'  reign 
over  Babylon  that  Merodach-Baladan  .sent 
ambassadors  to  Hezekiah  at  Jerusalem  to 
ascertain  the  particulars  of  the  strange  as- 
tronomical marvel,  or  miracle,  accompany- 
ing the  sickness  and  recovery  of  that  king. 
Hezekiah  exhibited  all  his  treasures  to  these 
ambassadors.  A  coalition  appears  to  have 
been  formed  against  A.ssyria  by  Babylon, 
Susiana,  the  Aramaean  tribes,  Judah  and 
Egypt.  In  B.  C.  711  Sargon,  King  of  As- 
syria, invaded  Egypt  and  compelled  its 
Ethiopian  king,  Sabaco,  to  .sue  for  peace. 
In  the  following  year,  B.  C.  710,  Sargon  led 


an  army  into  Babylonia,  defeated  Merodach- 
Baladan  and  his  Arama;an  and  Susianian 
allies  in  a  great  battle,  and  took  Bit-Yakin, 
making  Merodach-Baladan  prisoner  and 
gaining  possession  of  all  his  treasures; 
whereupon  Babylonia  submitted  to  Sargon, 
who  carried  Merodach-Baladan  captive  to 
Assyria,  and  himself  assumed  the  title  of 
"  King  of  Babylon." 

But  when  Sargon  died,  B.  C.  704,  the 
Babylonians  ca.st  off  the  Assyrian  yoke.  A 
number  of  pretenders  claimed  the  Babylon- 
ian crown.  A  son  of  Sargon  and  a  brother 
of  Sennacherib  restored  Assyrian  supremacy 
for  a  short  time,  but  the  Babylonians  again 
revolted.  Hagisa  reigned  over  Babylon 
about  a  month.  Merodach-Baladan,  escap- 
ing from  his  Assyrian  captivity,  murdered 
Hagisa  and  seized  the  Babj'lonian  throne, 
of  which  he  had  been  deprived  seven  years 
before.  But  Sennacherib,  King  of  Assyria, 
Sargon's  son  and  successor,  led  an  army  into 
Babylonia  in  B.  C.  703,  defeated  Merodach- 
Baladan  and  drove  him  into  exile,  after  a 
reign  of  six  months,  and  annexed  Babylonia 
to  the  Assyrian  kingdom.  Thenceforth,  for 
seventy-eight  years,  until  the  revolt  of  Nabo- 
polassar,  B.  C.  625,  Babylonia,  with  a  few 
short  intervals,  remained  an  Assyrian  de- 
pendency. During  this  period  the  Assyrian 
monarchs  governed  Babylonia  by  means  of 
viceroj's,  such  as  Belibus,  Regibelus,  Meses- 
imordachus,  and  Saos-duchinus,  or  diredtly 
and  personally,  as  by  Esar-haddon  and  by 
A.sshur-bani-pal  in  his  later  years.  During 
Sennacherib's  reign  there  were  two  Baljy- 
lonian  revolts  against  Assyria,  one  headed 
by  Merodach-Baladan  in  Chaldaea,  and  the 
other  by  Susub  at  Babylon.  These  were 
soon  suppressed  by  Sennacherib,  as  related 
in  the  Ass5'rian  histor>'.  While  A.sshur- 
bani-pal  was  King  of  Assyria,  his  brother, 
Saiil-Mugina,  also  called  Sammughes,  or 
Saos-duchinus,  attempted  to  make  himself 
independent,  but  was  subdued  and  burned 
alive,  as  also  stated  in  the  history  of  As.syria. 
Thus  ended  the  second  period  of  Chaldsean, 
or  Babylonian  history — the  period  of  Baby- 
lonian and  Chaldsean  subjedtion  to  Assyria, 
from  Tiglathi-Nin's  conquest  in  B.  C.  1300 


POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


269 


to  Nabopolassar's  successful  revolt  in  B.  C. 
625. 

We  will  now  proceed  to  the  historj'  of  the 
Babylonian  Ivinpire,  first  relating  the  cir- 
cumstances of  its  foundation.  When  the 
Medes  under  their  valiant  king,  Cyaxares, 
a  second  time  crossed  the  Zagros  range  and 
attacked  Nineveh  from  the  east,  the  Susian- 
ians  menaced  the  great  capital  from  the 
south.  In  this  extremity  the  last  Assyrian 
king,  Assshur-emid-ilin,  or  Saracus,  divided 
his  forces,  retaining  a  portion  under  his  own 
command  for  the  defense  of  his  capital 
against  the  Medes,  and  sending  a  portion 
under  his  general,  Nabopolassar,  or  Nabu- 
pal-uzur,  to  Babylon  to  oppose  the  advance 
of  the  Susianians  from  the  south.  Taking 
advantage  of  the  perilous  straits  of  his  sov- 
ereign, Nabopolassar  resolved  to  betray  him 
in  order  to  obtain  for  himself  an  independent 
kingdom.  He  therefore  negotiated  an  alli- 
ance with  Cyaxares,  the  Median  king,  and 
obtained  that  king's  daughter  as  a  bride  for 
his  own  .son,  Nebuchadnezzar.  The  united 
Median  and  Babylonian  annies  then  be- 
sieged Nineveh,  which  was  finally  taken 
and  destroyed,  B.  C.  625,  as  already  related 
in  the  histories  of  Assyria  and  Media.  In 
the  division  of  the  Assyrian  Empire,  which 
followed  the  fall  of  Nineveh,  Cyaxares  ob- 
tained Assj'ria  proyyer  and  all  Assyria's  de- 
pendencies towards  the  north  and  north-west; 
while  the  traitor  Nabopolassar  received  Ba- 
bylonia, Chaldaea,  Susiana,  Upper  Mesopo- 
tamia, Syria  and  Palestine.  Thus  arose  the 
Babylonian  Empire. 

We  know  very  little  about  the  reign  of 
Nabopolassar.  The  Canon  of  Ptolemy  in- 
forms us  that  he  dated  his  accession  from 
the  3'ear  B.  C.  625,  and  that  his  reign 
lasted  twenty-one  years,  ending  in  B.  C. 
604.  During  most  of  this  time  Babylon- 
ian history  is  a  blank.  Babylon  had  no 
inclination  to  jeopardize  her  position  at 
the  head  of  an  empire  by  aggression,  and 
her  peaceful  attitude  of  course  provoked  no 
hostility  from  her  neighbors.  Media,  bound 
by  dj'uastic  interests  and  by  formal  treaty, 
could  be  depended  upon  as  a  finn  friend. 
Persia  was  too  feeble,  and  Lydia  too  distant. 


to  be  formidable.  Egypt,  though  ho.stile 
and  powerful,  was  ruled  by  a  .sovereign 
whom  misfortune  and  age  prevented  engag- 
ing in  any  distant  military  enterprise;  so 
that  as  long  as  Psammetichus  was  living 
Babylon  had  comparatively  nothing  to  fear 
from  any  quarter,  and,  in  the  language  of 
the  Jewish  prophet  Isaiah,  could  "give 
herself  to  pleasure  and  dwell  carelessly." 

It  was  only  as  the  ally  of  Media  that  Ba- 
bylon was  obliged  to  exert  herself  during 
the  first  eighteen  3'ears  of  her  empire,  being 
bound  by  treaty  to  aid  Cyaxares  in  his 
wars  and  conquests  after  the  capture  and 
destrucftion  of  Nineveh,  the  Babylonian  con- 
tingents on  these  occasions  being  led  either 
by  Nabopolassar  or  by  his  son,  the  crown- 
prince  Nebuchadnezzar.  In  a  war  betw^een 
Media  and  Lydia,  as  the  armies  of  these 
two  hostile  nations  were  about  to  engage  in 
battle,  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  excited  the 
superstitious  fears  of  both,  so  that  they 
were  disposed  to  reconciliation.  Thereupon 
the  Babylonian  monarch  acfted  as  peace- 
maker. Having  discovered  that  Syennesis 
of  Cilicia,  the  leading  man  of  the  Lydian 
side,  was  disposed  to  second  his  friendly 
offices,  Nabopolassar  proposed  the  holding 
of  a  peace  conference.  The  result  was  that 
a  treaty  of  peace  and  friendship,  cemented 
by  a  royal  intermarriage,  was  concluded  be- 
tween Media  and  Lydia;  thus  giving  West- 
em  Asia  almost  half  a  century  of  peace, 
after  almost  perpetual  warfare  and  devasta- 
tion. 

After  this  successful  attempt  at  mediation, 
Nabopolassar  returned  to  Babylon.  He  was 
prevented  from  ending  his  last  years  in 
peace  by  the  warlike  attitude  of  Neko,  King 
of  Egypt,  the  son  and  successor  of  Psammet- 
ichus, who  sought  to  wrest  Syria  and  Pal- 
estine from  the  Babylonian  Empire.  In  B. 
C.  608  the  Eg3'ptian  king  led  an  army  into 
Palestine,  where  the  Jewish  king  Josiah,  in 
fulfillment  of  his  duty  as  va.ssal  monarch  to 
the  King  of  Babylon,  had  assembled  an 
anuy  at  Megiddo  to  oppose  his  further  ad- 
vance in  the  territories  of  Nabopola.ssar. 
Thereupon  Neko  .sent  an  embassy  to  per- 
suade Josiah  that  he  had  no  hostile  feelings 


270 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR ) '.  —  BA  B  }  7.  ON  I  A . 


toward  the  Jews,  and  claiming  divine  ap- 
proval of  his  enterprise.  But  Josiah,  loyal 
to  his  suzerain,  remained  firm  in  his  opposi- 
tion to  the  advance  of  the  invaders;  where- 
upon he  was  attacked  and  defeated  at  Me- 
giddo,  and  fled  mortally  wounded  to  Jeru- 
salem, where  he  died.  Neko  followed  up 
his  vicftory  by  advancing  through  Syria  to 
the  Euphrates,  and  extended  his  authority 
over  the  whole  region  from  Egypt  on  the 
south-west  to  the  "Great  River"  on  the 
north-east.  Returning  three  months  later, 
Neko  dethroned  Jehoahaz,  a  younger  son  of 
Josiah,  whom  the  Jewish  people  had  made 
king,  and  bestowed  the  Jewish  crown  on 
Jehoiakim,  his  elder  brother.  During  this 
time  Neko  besieged  and  took  the  Philistine 
city  of  Gaza. 

Three  years  later,  in  B.  C.  605,  Nabopo- 
lassar,  now  venerable  for  his  age,  sent  an 
army  under  his  son,  the  crown-prince  Nebu- 
chadnezzar, against  the  conquering  hosts  of 
the  Egyptian  king.  The  Hittite  city  of 
Carchemish,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Eu- 
phrates, was  then  the  key  of  Syria;  and  at 
this  place  Nebuchadnezzar  thoroughly  de- 
feated and  routed  the  Egyptians,  who  fled 
in  disma}'.  Nebuchadnezzar  rapidly  rees- 
tablished the  Babjdonian  sway  over  Syria 
and  Palestine,  received  the  submission  of 
Jehoiakim,  King  of  Judah,  restored  the 
frontier  line,  and  according  to  Berosus  in- 
vaded Eg^'pt  itself  But  upon  receiving 
news  from  Babylon  of  his  father's  death, 
Nebuchadnezzar  hastily  concluded  a  peace 
with  Neko,  and  speedilj'  returned  to  his 
capital,  in  fear  of  a  disputed  succession. 

Nebuchadnezzar  had  no  cause  for  his 
fears,  as  the  priests  had  assumed  control  of 
affairs  in  his  absence,  and  the  Chief  Priest, 
or  Head  of  the  Order,  had  kept  the  throne 
vacant  for  him  until  his  return,  while  no  pre- 
tender disputed  his  claims.  Nebuchadnezzar 
was  the  great  monarch  of  the  Babylonian 
Empire,  which  continued  but  eighty-seven 
years,  from  B.  C.  625  to  B.  C.  538,  and 
which  for  almost  half  that  period  was  ruled 
by  him.  The  military  glorj'  of  this  empire 
is  mostly  attributable  to  this  renowned  king, 
whose  charadler  and  genius  gave  it  the  con- 


stru(ftive  enterprise  which  was  its  essen- 
tial charadleristic.  To  Nebuchadnezzar  the 
prominent  place  of  the  Babylonians  in  his- 
tory is  almost  whollj-  due.  Besides  being 
an  able  general,  Nebuchadnezzar  was  one 
of  the  greatest  builders  of  antiquity. 

Our  knowledge  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  wars 
is  almost  entirely  derived  from  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. Therefore  we  are  only  infonned  of 
his  wars  in  Palestine  and  its  immediate 
vicinity,  as  related  by  the  Jewish  writers. 
We  only  possess  a  full  account  of  his  wars 
with  the  Jews,  and  some  knowledge  of  his 
campaigns  against  Egypt  and  Phoenicia, 
though  Berosus  sa^-s  he  warred  against  the 
Arabs  and  conquered  a  part  of  their  countrj'. 

A  few  years  after  Nebuchadnezzar's  vic- 
tory over  Neko,  King  of  Egy'pt,  troubles 
once  more  distracfted  Syria.  Tyre  headed  a 
rebellion  in  Phoenicia,  while  Jehoiakim,  the 
Jewish  king,  relying  upon  the  promised  aid 
of  the  Egyptian  monarch,  renounced  his 
allegiance  to  his  Babylonian  suzerain. 
Thereupon  Nebuchadnezzar,  in  his  seventh 
year,  B.  C.  598,  led  into  Palestine  an  expe- 
dition, consisting  of  his  own  subjedts  and 
his  Median  allies.  Polyhistor  says  this 
army  numbered  10,000  chariots,  120,000 
cavalry,  and  180,000  infantry.  Having 
invested  Tj're  and  found  that  city  too 
strong  to  assail  with  success,  Nebuchadnez- 
zar left  a  part  to  continue  the  siege,  while 
he  himself  marched  against  Jeru.salem.  On 
the  approach  of  the  Babylonian  king,  Jehoi- 
akim submitted,  as  he  was  not  supported 
by  his  Egyptian  allies;  but  Nebuchadnez- 
zar put  him  to  death,  in  punishment  for  his 
rebellion,  and  treated  his  body  with  indig- 
nity. Says  the  prophet  Jeremiah:  "He 
shall  be  buried  with  the  burial  of  an  ass, 
drawn  and  cast  forth  beyond  the  gates  of 
Jerusalem,"  and  again,  "His  dead  body 
shall  be  cast  out  in  the  day  to  the  heat  and 
in  the  night  to  the  frost." 

Nebuchadnezzar  first  placed  Jehoiachin, 
the  son  of  the  unfortunate  Jehoiakim,  upon 
the  Jewish  throne.  The  new  Jewish  king,  a 
mere  youth,  was  depo.sed  three  months 
later  by  the  suspicious  Nebuchadnezzar, 
and  carried  a  captive  to  Babylon;  while  his. 


/'( V.  /  TIL  WL    JUS  T(  )R  ) '. 


271 


uncle,  Zedekiah,  a  brother  of  Jehoiakiniand 
Jehoahaz,  was  placed  upon  the  Jewish  throne. 
The  island  citj'  of  Tyre,  in  the  meantime, 
withstood  a  siege  of  thirteen  3'ears  against 
the  forces  of  Nebuchadnezzar;  during  which 
Jerusalem  perished  in  a  final  effort  for  inde- 
]>endeiice. 

Zedekiah,  King  of  Judah,  remained  a 
faithful  vassal  of  the  Babylonian  king  for 
eight  years,  after  which  he  sought  an  alli- 
ance with  Uaphris,  King  of  Egypt, — the 
Apries  of  Herodotus — in  order  to  strike  for 
independence.  Says  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  in 
speaking  of  Zedekiah  on  this  occasion: 
"He  rebelled  against  him  in  sending  his 
ambassadors  into  Egypt,  that  they  might 
give  him  horses  and  much  people."  The 
Egyptian  king  looked  with  favor  upon 
the  overture  of  Zedekiah,  who  at  once 
revolted  from  Babylon,  and  prepared  to 
defend  himself  with  vigor.  As  this  was 
the  fourth  time  the  feeble  Jewi.sh  kingdom 
revolted  against  him,  Nebuchadnezzar  re- 
solved to  crush  it  b)'  a  decisi\'e  blow.  ' '  He 
and  all  his  host ' '  came  against  Jerusalem, 
and,  after  conquering  and  pillaging  the  open 
country,  "built  forts"  and  laid  siege  to  the 
city.  Uaphris  led  an  army  from  Egypt  to 
the  relief  of  his  beleaguered  ally,  whereupon 
the  Babylonian  army  raised  the  siege  and 
took  the  field  against  this  new  foe.  Jose- 
phus  says  that  the  Egyptians  were  defeated 
in  battle,  but  according  to  the  prophet  Jere- 
miah they  avoided  an  engagement  by  re- 
treating to  their  own  land.  In  either  case 
the  attempted  relief  of  the  Jewish  capital 
failed.  After  a  short  inter\-al  the  siege  was 
renewed,  the  city  was  completely  blockaded, 
and  after  a  siege  and  investment  of  eighteen 
months  Jerusalem  was  taken  by  the  Baby- 
lonians, B.  C.  586.  Before  the  city  fell, 
Nebuchadnezzar  withdrew  in  person  to  press 
the  siege  of  Tyre,  which,  if  it  fell  after  its 
thirteen  years'  siege,  nuist  ha\-e  fallen  the 
year  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem,  B.   C. 

585. 

By  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  and  Tyre,  the 
Babylonian  king  secured  the  quiet  posses- 
sion of  Palestine  and  Phoenicia.  Four  years 
after  the  fall  of  Tyre,  according  to  Josephus, 


Nebuchadnezzar  invaded  Egj'pt,  put  its 
king,  Uaphris,  the  friend  and  ally  of  Zede- 
kiah, to  death,  and  bestowed  the  Egj'ptian 
crown  upon  a  creature  of  his  own,  B.  C.  581. 
Herodotus,  however,  says  that  Uaphris  was 
put  to  death  by  a  rebellious  subje(5l,  and  he 
is  known  to  have  reigned  as  late  as  B.  C. 
569.  But  Nebuchadnezzar's  second  inva- 
sion of  Egypt,  B.  C.  570,  ended  in  the  de- 
position of  Uaphris,  who.se  succcs.sor,  A  ma- 
sis,  was  a  mere  vassal  of  the  Babylonian 
king. 

Thus  Nebuchadnezzar  defeated  Neko,  re- 
co\'ered  Syria,  suppressed  the  revolt  of  Ju- 
dah, reduced  Tyre  and  humbled  Egypt. 
Megasthenes  says  that  he  conquered  North 
Africa,  from  which  he  invaded  Spain  and 
subdued  the  Iberians,  colonizing  his  Iberian 
captives  on  the  shores  of  the  Euxine  sea  in 
the  region  between  Armenia  and  the  Cau- 
casus. Nebuchadnezzar  was  thus  repre- 
sented as  reigning  over  an  empire  extending 
from  the  Atlantic  ocean  on  the  west  to  the 
Caspian  sea  on  the  east,  and  from  the  Cau- 
ca.sus  on  the  north-east  to  the  great  Sahara 
on  the  south-west. 

Nebuchadnezzar's  militar>'  successes  gave 
him  that  great  command  of  ' '  naked  human 
strength ' '  by  which  he  was  enabled  to  pros- 
ecute his  great  proje(5ls  for  beautifying  and 
benefiting  his  kingdom  without  unnecessa- 
rily oppressing  his  own  people.  From  the 
start  he  carried  out  the  Assyrian  system  of 
forcible  deportation  of  the  entire  populations 
of  conquered  lands,  and  colonized  them  in 
remote  portions  of  his  dominions.  Multi- 
tudes of  captives  taken  in  his  wars — ^Jews, 
Egyptians,  Phoenicians,  Syrians,  Ammon- 
ites, Moabites  and  others — were  settled  in 
different  parts  of  Mesopotamia,  principally 
about  Babylon.  By  the  forced  labor  of  these 
capti\'es  the  great  works  of  Nebuchadnezzar, 
which  were  the  chief  glory  of  the  Babylon- 
ian Empire,  were  erecfted. 

Abydenus  and  Eusebius  say  that  Nebu- 
chadnezzar built  the  great  wall  of  Babylon. 
se\enty-five  feet  high,  and  thirty-two  feet 
wide,  with  a  circumference  of  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  stadia.  This  wall  was  of  solid 
brick  masonn-,  the  Baby-Ionian  bricks  being 


272 


ANCIENT  HISTORY— BABYLONIA. 


about  a  foot  square  and  from  three  to  four 
inches  thick.  Nebuchadnezzar,  in  the 
Standard  Inscription,  only  claims  to  have 
repaired  the  old  wall  of  the  city.  He  eredled 
a  splendid  new  palace  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
old  royal  residence.  He  construcfted  the 
famous  ' '  Hanging  Gardens ' '  to  delight  his 
Median  wife,  Amyitis,  the  daughter  of  Cyax- 
ares.  He  repaired  and  beautified  the  great 
temple  of  Bel  at  Babylon;  and  all  the  in- 
scribed bricks  thus  far  discovered  in  the 
Babil  mound  bear  Nebuchadnezzar's  legend. 
He  dug  the  immense  reservoir  at  Sippara, 
which  was  said  to  have  been  one  hundred 
and  forty  miles  in  circumference,  and  one 
hundred  and  eighty  feet  deep,  providing  it 
with  flood-gates,  through  which  its  waters 
might  be  drawn  off  for  purposes  of  irrigation. 
He  constructed  many  canals,  among  which 
was  the  Nahr  Makha,  or  "Royal  River,"  a 
wide  and  deep  channel  connedling  the  Eu- 
phrates and  the  Tigris.  He  built  quays 
and  breakwaters  along  the  shores  of  the 
Persian  Gulf,  and  founded  the  city  of  Diri- 
dotis,  or  Teredon,  near  that  gulf. 

According  to  Nebuchadnezzar's  own  in- 
scriptions, or  to  existing  remains,  this  re- 
nowned Babylonian  monarch  erecfled  the 
Birs-i-Nimrud,  or  great  temple  of  Nebo,  at 
Borsippa;  constru(5led  a  vast  reservoir  in 
Babylon  itself,  called  the  Yapur-Shapu,  and 
a  brick  embankment  along  the  course  of  the 
Tigris,  near  Bagdad,  the  bricks  of  which 
bear  his  name  and  have  remained  undis- 
turbed; and  built  many  temples,  walls  and 
other  public  buildings  at  Cutha,  Sippara, 
Borsippa,  Babylon,  Chilmad,  Bit-Digla  and 
other  places.  This  indefatigable  king  either 
rebuilt  or  repaired  nearly  all  the  Babylonian 
cities  and  temples.  No  less  than  a  hundred 
sites  in  the  vicinity  of  Babylon  testify,  by 
inscribed  bricks  bearing  his  legend,  to  his 
wonderful  acflivity  and  energy.  , 

Nebuchadnezzar  is  also  believed  to  have 
construdled  the  canal  called  by  the  Arabs 
the  Kerck  Sa'ideh,  or  canal  of  Saideh,  and  as- 
cribed by  them  to  a  wife  of  Nebuchadnez- 
zar. This  canal,  four  hundred  miles  long, 
extended  from  Hit,  on  the  Euphrates,  along 
the  extreme  western  edge  of  the  alluvium 


close  to  the  Arabian  frontier,  to  the  head  of 
the  Bubian  creek,  about  twenty  miles  west 
of  the  Shat-el-Arab.  Traces  of  this  canal 
j'et  remaining  attest  the  magnitude  of  this 
great  work.  The  Pallacopas,  or  canal  of 
Opa,  (Palga  Opa),  which  flowed  from  the 
Euphrates  at  Sippara  (now  Mosaib)  to  a 
great  lake  in  the  vicinity  of  Borsippa,  whence 
the  neighboring  lands  were  irrigated,  is  also 
believed  to  have  been  construcfled  by  this 
great  monarch.  It  was  an  old  canal,  out 
of  repair,  in  the  time  of  Alexander  the 
Great;  and  is  called  the  Nahr  Abba  by  the 
Arabs,  who  consider  it  the  oldest  canal  in 
the  country. 

The  Old  Testament  gives  us  some  knowl- 
edge of  Nebuchadnezzar's  private  life  and 
personal  charadler.  The  Book  of  Daniel  rep- 
resents the  great  monarch  at  the  head  of  a 
most  magnificent  court;  surrounded  with 
"  princes,  governors,  captains,  judges,  treas- 
urers, councilors,  and  sheriffs;"  waited  upon 
by  carefully-chosen  eunuchs,  "well-favored" 
and  educated  with  care;  attended,  at  his  de- 
sire, by  a  host  of  astrologers  and  other  ' '  wise 
men, ' '  who  sought  to  reveal  to  him  the  di- 
vine will.  He  was  an  absolute  monarch, 
having  the  lives  and  properties  of  his  sub- 
jedls,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  at  his 
disposal;  and  dispensing  all  offices  at  his 
pleasure.  He  could  elevate  a  foreigner  to  a 
second  place  in  the  kingdom,  and  even  place 
him  over  the  whole  priesthood.  His  im- 
mense wealth  is  proven  by  the  fadl  that  he 
made  an  image  or  obelisk  of  pure  gold, 
ninety  feet  high  and  nine  feet  wide.  He 
wavered  in  his  religion,  sometimes  acknowl- 
edging the  Jehovah  of  the  Jews  as  the  only 
real  deity,  sometimes  relapsing  into  the 
idolatrous  Babylonian  polytheism,  and  for- 
cing his  subjedls  to  do  the  same.  But  his 
polytheism  was  characfterized  by  a  special 
devotion  to  a  particular  deity,  whom  he 
designates  emphatically  as  "  his  god. ' '  Neb- 
uchadnezzar's  inscriptions  clearly  show  that 
his  favorite  god  was  Merodach. 

Nebuchadnezzar  was  hasty  and  violent  in 
temper,  but  not  obstinate.  His  fierce  re- 
solves were  taken  suddenly  and  repented 
of   quickly.      He   could    occasionally   give 


POIJTICAL    HISTORY. 


273 


way  to  outbursts  of  gratitude  and  devotion. 
He  was  as  vainglorious  as  Orientals  gener- 
ally, but  could  bow  in  humiliation  before 
the  divine  castigation.  He  often  showed  a 
spirit  of  sincere  piety,  self-condemnation 
and  self-abasement,  as  the  following  from  the 
Book  of  Daniel  clearly  proves:  "I  blessed 
the  Most  High,  and  I  praised  and  honored 
Him  that  liveth  forever,  Whose  dominion  is 
an  everlasting  dominion,  and  His  kingdom 
is  from  generation  to  generation;  and  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  earth  are  reputed  as  noth- 
ing, and  He  doeth  according  to  His  will  in 
the  anny  of  heaven,  and  among  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  earth;  and  none  can  stay  His 
hand,  or  say  unto  Him,  What  doest  Thou  ? 
Now  I,  Nebuchadnezzar,  praise  and  extol 
and  honor  the  King  of  heaven.  Whose  works 
are  truth,  and  His  ways  judgment;  and 
those  that  walk  in  pride  He  is  able  to  abase." 

Another  Jewish  prophet,  Jeremiah,  gives 
a  darker  shade  to  the  character  of  the  illus- 
trious Babylonian  monarch.  This  writer 
tells  us  that  Nebuchadnezzar  executed 
Jehoiakim  and  treated  his  body  with  indig- 
nit)',  murdered  Zedekiah's  sons  before  his 
eyes,  put  out  the  eyes  of  Zedekiah  himself, 
and  kept  Zedekiah  and  Jehoiachin  in  pro- 
longed imprisonment.  These  acts  of  bar- 
barous cruelty  imply  in  the  great  Babylonian 
king  a  disposition  as  ferocious  as  that  of 
Sargon  or  Asshur-bani-pal. 

Berosus  infonns  us  that  Nebuchadnezzar 
was  devotedly  attached  to  his  Median  wife, 
Amyitis,  whom  his  father  had  seledled  for 
him  for  reasons  of  state.  Solely  to  please 
her,  he  eredled  the  celebrated  ' '  Hanging 
Gardens"  at  Babylon.  The  rocks  and  trees 
of  this  delightful  artificial  Paradise,  where 
art  strove  to  rival  nature,  were  designed  to 
imitate  the  beautiful  mountain  scenery  of 
Media. 

In  his  later  days  Nebuchadnezzar  dreamed 
a  strange  dream,  the  meaning  of  which  was 
interpreted  to  him  by  the  Jewish  prophet 
Daniel,  who,  though  carried  into  the  Baby- 
lonian captivity  with  his  nation,  had  arrived 
at  high  honors  under  the  Babylonian  king. 
Daniel  told  the  king  that  his  dream  por- 
tended that  he  would  fof  seven  years  be  a 


vi(5tim  to  a  strange  and  rare  kind  of  madness. 
A  vi(5lim  to  this  malady,  called  Lycanthropy, 
imagines  himself  a  beast,  does  not  talk,  re- 
jedls  the  usual  human  food,  and  sometimes 
loses  the  erecft  attitude  and  walks  on  hands 
and  feet.  Within  a  year  of  the  warning, 
Nebuchadnezzar  was  stricken  in  the  very 
hour  in  which  he  had  exclaimed  in  his  pride: 
"Is  not  this  great  Babylon,  that  I  have  built 
for  the  house  of  the  kingdom  by  the  might 
of  my  power,  and  for  the  honor  of  my  ma- 
jesty !"  The  great  monarch  became  a  help- 
less and  wretched  madman.  He  lived  in 
the  open  air  day  and  night,  "and  did  eat 
grass  as  oxen,"  and  went  naked  "till  his 
hairs  v/ere  grown  like  eagles'  feathers,  and 
his  nails  like  birds'  claws. ' '  After  suffering 
thus  for  seven  years,  Nebuchadnezzar  re- 
gained his  reason,  and  his  recovery  was 
hailed  with  rejoicing  by  his  court.  His 
councilors  and  lords  greeted  his  presence. 
He  again  resumed  the  government  of  his 
empire,  i.ssued  his  proclamations,  and  dis- 
charged all  his  royal  duties.  He  had  now 
reached  old  age,  ' '  but  '  the  glory  of  his 
kingdom,'  his  'honor  and  brightness'  re- 
turned;" "  his  last  days  were  as  brilliant  as 
his  first;  his  sun  set  in  an  unclouded  sky, 
shorn  of  none  of  the  rays  that  had  given 
splendor  to  its  noonday."  Nebuchadnezzar 
died  in  B.  C.  561,  in  the  forty-fourth  year 
of  his  reign,  when  almost  eighty  years  old. 
Nebuchadnezzar  was  succeeded  by  his 
.son  Evil-Merodach,  of  whose  short  reign 
of  two  years  but  very  little  is  known.  He 
seemed  disposed  to  favor  the  Jews.  Upon 
his  accession,  he  released  Jehoiachin  from 
his  thirty-five  years'  imprisonment,  and 
treated  him  with  kindness  and  respedl,  rec- 
ognizing his  royal  rank  and  giving  him  pre- 
cedence over  all  the  captive  kings  residing- 
at  Babylon.  Josephus  says  that  he  adlually 
accepted  Jehoiachin  as  one  of  his  most  inti- 
mate friends.  After  Evil-Merodach  had  oc- 
cupied the  Babylonian  throne  but  two  years 
he  was  accused  of  lawlessness  and  intemper- 
ance, a  con.spiracy  was  formed  against  him, 
his  own  brother-in-law,  Neriglis.sar,  heading 
the  malcontents;  and  Evil-Merodach  lost 
both  crown  and  life,  B.  C.  559. 


274 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y.—BAB  YL  ONI  A . 


Neriglissar  was  at  once  recognized  as 
King  of  Babjlon.  His  real  name,  as  seen 
on  his  bricks,  was  Nergal-sar-uzur;  and  he 
is  believed  to  have  been  the  ' '  Nergal-shar- 
ezer,  Rag-Mag,"  mentioned  bj'  the  Jewish 
prophet  Jeremiah,  and  who  held  an  import- 
ant office  among  the  Babylonian  nobles  left 
to  press  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  when  Nebu- 
chadnezzar retired  to  Riblah.  It  is  known 
that  the  king  bore  the  office  of  Rag-Mag, 
and  that  title  is  also  upon  his  bricks.  Ne- 
riglissar  styled  himself  the  son  of  Bel-sum- 
iskun,  "king  of  Babylon" — a  sovereign 
whose  name  is  not  mentioned  by  the  Canon 
of  Ptolemy,  but  who  was  perhaps  a  chief- 
tain who  took  the  royal  title  during  the 
troubles  preceding  the  fall  of  the  Assj-rian 
Empire.  Neriglissar  reigned  only  three 
years  and  four  months,  and  was  engaged 
chiefly  in  the  eredtion  of  the  Western  Palace 
at  Babylon,  an  immense  edifice  at  one  comer 
of  the  fortified  enclosure,  diredlly  opposite 
the  old  palace,  and  abutting  on  the  Euphra- 
tes. Diodorus  described  this  strucfture  as 
most  magnificent,  being  elaborately  orna- 
mented with  painting  and  sculpture  in  the 
best  style  of  Babylonian  art,  though  it  may 
have  been  smaller  than  the  ancient  ro3^al 
residence  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river. 

Neriglissar  died  B.  C.  556,  after  the  short 
reign  mentioned,  and  was  succeeded  by  his 
.son,  Laborosoarchod,  so  called  by  Be- 
rosus  and  the  Canon  of  Ptolemy.  This 
THonarch,  a  mere  youth,  onlj'  wore  the  Baby- 
lonian crown  a  few  months,  when  he  was 
accused  of  showing  many  signs  of  a  bad 
disposition,  and  was  deposed  and  put  to 
death,  B.  C.  555;  and  with  him  ended  the 
■dynasty  of  Nabopolassar,  which  had  occu- 
pied the  Babylonian  throne  seventy  j'ears, 
from  B.  C.  625  to  B.  C.  555. 

Nabonadius,  so  called  by  the  Canon  of 
Ptolemy,  and  whom  the  conspirators  chose 
from  among  their  own  number  to  succeed 
Eaborosoarchod,  was  not  related  to  his  prede- 
cessor. He  was  called  Nabonnedus  by  Bero- 
sus.  Thus  Nabonadius,  like  Neriglissar, 
was  a  usurper;  and,  like  his  father,  held  the 
important  office  of  Rag-Mag,  as  on  his  bricks 
and  cylinders  he  styled  himself  "  Nabonidus, 


the  son  of  Nabu-  *  *  -dirba,  the  Rag- 
Mag."  To  secure  his  usurped  throne,  Na- 
bonadius married  a  princess  of  the  royal 
house  of  Nabopolassar. 

Soon  after  his  accession,  in  B.  C.  555, 
Nabonadius  received  an  embassy  from  the 
remote  North-west.  Three  years  before,  in 
B.  C.  558 — during  the  reign  of  Neriglissar 
at  Babylon — Cyrus  the  Great  founded  the 
Medo- Persian  Empire  by  deposing  the 
Median  king  Astyages  and  transferring  the 
supremacy  of  the  Aryan  race  from  the 
Medes  to  the  Persians.  Cyrus  at  once  en- 
tered upon  a  career  of  conquest  which  event- 
ually brought  all  of  Western  Asia  under  the 
Medo- Persian  dominion. 

Fearing  the  rising  power  of  Persia  in  the 
East,  Lydian  ambassadors  were  sent  to 
Babylon  in  B.  C.  555,  the  very  year  in  which 
Nabonadius  ascended  the  Babylonian  throne, 
proposing  an  alliance  against  the  new  power 
which  threatened  the  existence  of  the  other 
Oriental  monarchies  of  the  time.  Nabona- 
dius decided  to  unite  in  the  proposed  offen- 
sive and  defensive  alliance  with  Lydia  and 
Eg>'pt  to  check  the  growing  power  of  his 
new  eastern  neighbor. 

Aware  that  he  thus  provoked  the  hostil- 
ity' of  a  powerful  foe  by  this  decisive  course, 
and  not  knowing  how  soon  he  might  be 
obliged  to  defend  his  kingdom  against  the 
whole  force  of  Persia,  Nabonadius  at  once 
began  to  strengthen  Babylon.  Herodotus 
ascribed  these  defensive  works  to  Nitocris,  a 
queen  whom  he  calls  the  mother  of  Nabona- 
dius; but  Berosus  says  that  they  were  eredted 
hy  Nabonadius  himself.  These  works  con- 
sisted partly  of  defenses  within  the  city, 
intended  to  secure  it  against  an  enemy 
who  .should  enter  it  by  the  river,  partly  of 
hydraulic  works  designed  to  obstru<5t  the 
advance  of  an  anny  b}'  the  usual  route. 
The  river  had  thus  far  flowed  in  its  natural 
channel  through  the  middle  of  the  city; 
but  Nabonadius  confined  the  stream  by  a 
brick  embankment  extended  the  whole  way 
along  both  banks,  after  which  he  eredled  on 
the  top  of  the  embankment  a  high  wall, 
pierced  at  inten'als  by  gateways,  in  which 
were   set  gates   of    bronze.     He   also   con- 


/'( )A  /  y  icA  L  HIS  1 X ) A' } : 


275 


276 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y.—BAB  YL  ONI  A. 


strudted  cuttings,  reservoirs  and  sluices  at 
some  distance  from  Babylon  towards  the 
north,  designed  to  obstrudl  the  march  of  a 
hostile  army.  Xenophon  likewise  spoke  of 
a  rampart — known  as  the  "Median  Wall" 
— extending  across  the  tracft  between  the 
two  rivers — a  vast  barrier  a  hundred  feet 
high  and  twenty  feet  thick — intended  to  be 
insurmountable  by  an  unskillful  enemy,  but 
this  is  doubted  by  modem  writers. 

Nabonadius  was  permitted  to  complete 
his  fortification  of  Babylon  unmolested;  but 
his  rash  ally,  Croesus,  the  wealthy  King  of 
Lydia,  rushed  impetuously  into  a  war  with 
Persia  without  asking  the  assistance  of  the 
Babylonian  monarch.  Cjtus  promptly  at- 
tacked Croesus  by  invading  Lydia,  defeated 
him  in  the  battle  of  Pteria,  and  besieged  and 
captured  Sardis,  the  Lydian  capital,  before 
Nabonadius  could  render  his  impulsive  ally 
any  aid.  For  fourteen  years  Babylon  re- 
mained unmenaced  by  the  Persian  king. 

Finally,  in  B.  C.  559,  Nabonadius  re- 
ceived tidings  that  Cyrus  the  Great  was 
marching  from  Ecbatana,  the  Median  cap- 
ital, in  the  diredlion  of  Babylon;  but  as  his 
defenses  were  completed  and  the  city  amply 
provisioned,  the  Babylonian  monarch  felt 
perfe(5lly  secure  behind  the  walls  of  his 
capital.  Herodotus  says  that  the  Persian 
invader  paused  half-way  between  Ecbatana 
and  Babylon,  because  one  of  the  sacred 
white  horses  which  drew  the  chariot  of 
Orraazd  had  been  drowned  in  crossing  a 
river.  Declaring  that  he  would  punish  the 
insolent  stream,  Cyrus  employed  his  sol- 
diers during  the  whole  summer  and  autumn 
of  B.  C.  539  in  dispersing  the  waters  of 
the  stream  into  three  hundred  and  sixty 
channels. 

Cyrus  renewed  his  march  upon  Babylon 
in  the  spring  of  B.  C.  538,  crossing  the 
Tigris  without  opposition  and  soon  appear- 
ing before  Babylon.  The  Babylonian  army 
under  Nabonadius  himself  was  here  drawn 
up  to  oppose  him.  In  the  battle  which  en- 
sued the  Babylonian  king  was  thoroughly 
defeated,  the  greater  part  of  his  army  seek- 
ing refuge  inside  the  walls  of  the  capital, 
while  he  himself  with  a  small  body  of  troops 


fled  for  safety  into  the  important  city  of 
Borsippa,  a  short  distance  south-west  from 
Babylon. 

In  the  meantime,  the  Babylonian  crown- 
prince,  Belshazzar,  or  Bel-shar-uzur,  the  son 
of  Nabonadius,  and  the  grandson  of  the 
illustrious  Nebuchadnezzar — supported  by 
the  counsels  of  his  mother  and  the  officers, 
of  the  court — for  a  time  successfully  re- 
sisted all  the  Persian  assaults,  so  that  Cyrus, 
almost  reduced  to  despair,  resorted  to  a  stra- 
tagem whose  failure  might  have  cost  him 
dear.  Leaving  a  corps  of  observation  be- 
hind him,  Cyrus,  with  the  bulk  of  his  army, 
marched  up  the  course  of  the  Euphrates  for 
some  distance,  and  dug  a. new  channel,  or 
channels,  from  the  river,  by  means  of  which 
a  part  of  its  water  could  be  drawn  off. 
Cyrus  awaited  the  arrival  of  a  certain  festi- 
val at  Babylon,  when  the  entire  Babylonian 
population  would  be  engaged  in  drinking 
and  revelry.  The  festival  on  this  occasion 
was  held  with  more  than  usual  pomp  and 
magnificence,  and  Belshazzar  gave  himself 
up  entirely  to  the  delights  of  the  season,  en- 
tertaining a  thousand  dignitaries  in  his  pal- 
ace. The  rest  of  the  population  was  occu- 
pied in  feasting  and  dancing;  and  in  the- 
midst  of  drunken  riot  and  mad  excitement 
the  siege  of  the  city  was  wholly  forgotten, 
and  the  usual  precautions  were  negledted. 
The  Babylonians  abandoned  themselves  for 
the  night  to  orgies  charadlerized  by  a  strange 
mingling  of  religious  frenzy  and  drunkeiL 
excess. 

While  this  was  going  on  inside  the  city 
during  this  eventful  night,  the  Persians 
were  silently  watching  outside  at  the  two- 
points  where  the  Euphrates  entered  and  left 
the  walls.  They  anxiously  and  cautiously 
watched  the  gradual  sinking  of  the  river- 
bed, to  discover  if  their  silent  movements- 
would  be  observed  and  cause  alann.  Had 
they  entered  the  river  channel  to  find  the 
river-walls  manned  and  the  river-gates- 
locked  fast  they  would  have  been  caught  in 
a  trap.  Flanked  on  both  sides  by  an  enemy 
they  could  neither  see  nor  reach  they  would 
have  been  caught  at  a  terrible  disadvantage. 
In  such  a  case  they  would  have  been  entirely 


POLITICAL    HISTORY. 


277 


cut  to  pieces  without  being  able  to  make 
any  effectual  resistance,  or  to  escape  from 
their  perilous  position.  But  as  they  ob- 
served no  signs  of  alarm,  but  only  the 
shouts  of  riotous  revelry,  on  the  part  of  the 
unsuspeifting  jiopukice,  the  Persians  grew 
bolder,  and,  when  the  revelry  was  at  its 
height,  emerged  from  the  deep  river- 
bed and  seized  the  two  undefended  gate- 
ways. The  frightened  Babylonians  at 
once  raised  a  war-shout  and  spread  the 
alarm.  Swift  ruimers  hurried  off  to 
".show  the  King  of  Babylon  that  his  city 
was  taken  at  one  end  ; "  so  says  the 
Book  of  Jeremiah.  In  the  darkness  and 
confusion  of  the  night  a  frightful  massacre 
occurred,  says  Xenophon.  The  drunken 
revelers  were  unable  to  resist.  Belshazzar, 
completely  surprised  and  utterly  helpless 
"at  the  awful  handwriting  upon  the  wall," 
which  appeared  at  this  time,  was  warned  of 
his  danger  when  too  late,  and  could  offer  no 
check  to  the  progress  of  the  assailants,  who 
had  the  paralyzed  populace  completely  at 
their  mercy.  A  baud  of  Persians  forced 
their  way  into  the  roj'al  palace  and  slew  the 
astonished  Belshazzar  on  the  scene  of  his 
sacrilegious  revelry.     Such  is  the  testimony 


of  Herodotus  and  Xenophon,  of  Daniel  and 
Jeremiah.  Says  the  Book  of  Daniel:  "In 
that  night  was  Belshazzar  slain."  The 
triumphant  Persians  destroyed  right  and 
left  with  fire  and  sword.  The  dawn  found 
Cyrus  undisputed  master  of  the  mighty 
Babylon. 

After  ordering  the  fortifications  of  Babylon 
to  be  dismantled,  Cyrus  marched  against 
Nabonadius  at  Borsippa;  but,  seeing  the 
folly  of  resistance,  the  unfortunate  Nabona- 
dius surrendered  himself  upon  the  approach 
of  his  triumphant  foe.  Cyrus  kindly  treated 
the  captive  king,  sparing  his  life,  and,  ac- 
cording to  Abydenus,  conferring  on  him  the 
govennnent  of  the  important  province  of 
Carmania. 

Thus  fell  the  mighty  Babylonian  Empire, 
after  an  existence  of  eighty-seven  years, 
from  B.  C.  625  to  B.  C.  538.  For  half  a 
century  did  Babylon,  along  with  Media  and 
Lydia,  control  the  destines  of  Western  Asia. 
The  Babylonian  dominions  then  became  a 
part  of  the  great  Medo- Persian  Empire,  and 
the  great  city  which  had  plaj-ed  so  import- 
ant a  part  in  Oriental  history  for  centuries 
became  the  winter  capital  of  the  Medo- 
Persian  kings. 


THE    K.\SR,    KAIIVI.ON. 


27S 


ANCIENT  HIS  TON  )  '.—BAB  YL  ONI  A. 


KINGS    OF    BABYLON. 


B.  C. 

KINGS. 

Contemporary 
Kings  of  Assyria. 

Remarkable  Events. 

1300 

Assyrian  Dynasty 

Tiglathi-Nin  I.    .    . 

*                  -r                    * 

Bel-kudur-uzur. 

The  Assyrians  contiuer  Babylon. 

/ 

*                *                 * 

Nin-]5ala-zira. 
Asshur-davan  I. 
Mutatigil-Nebo. 

1 150 
1130 

Nebuchadnezzar  I 

MERODACH-inDIN-AKHI 

Asshur-ris-ilim    .    . 
Tiglath-Pileser  I.    . 

1   Wars    between    Assyria    and 
j        Babylon. 

mo 

Merodach-shapik-ziri 

Asshur-bil-kala   .    . 

Sbanias-Vul  I. 

*                 -:fr                  * 

*         ■>,          * 

i 

TsiBiR  (Deboras) 

■:c                    *                     * 

Asshur-Mazur      .    . 
■s-         *          * 

Asshur-davau  II. 

)  Babylon  iu  alliance  with  Egypt. 
I      Takes  territory  from  Assyria. 

*                    *                     * 

Vul-lush  II. 

880 

Tiglatbi-Niu  II. 
Asshur-izir-pal     .    . 

)  Assyria  recovers  her  lost  terri- 
\      tory. 

850 

Merodach-sum-adin 

Shalmaneser  II. 

j  Civil  war  in  Babylon.     Assyria 
l      helps  the  legitimate  king. 

820 

JlERODACH-UKI,ATZU-IKBI      .... 

Shamas-Vul  II.  .    . 

1  Babylon    conquered.       Passes 

*                           -v                           * 

Vul-lush  III. 
Shalmaneser  III. 
Asshur-dayan  III. 

I      under  Assyria. 

775 

PUL  (?) 

752 
747 
745 

Asshur-lush. 

f  Babylon  reestablishes  her  iude- 
1      pendence. 

N.\BON,ASSAR 

Tiglath-Pileser  II. 

733 
731 

Nadius 

Chinzinus  and  PoRus 

726 

El.UL.EUS 

Shalmaneser  IV. 

721 

7i3(?) 

Mhrodach-Baladan     

Sargon. 

/  Embassy  of  Merodach-Baladan 
\      to  He'zekiah.                                  i 

709 

Arceanus  (Sart^ou) 

Babylon  conquered  by  Sargon. 
Babylon  revolts. 

Sennacherib  conquers  Babylon. 

704 

Interrei^nuin      .            

Sennacherib    . 

703 

1  Hagisa ■) 

1  Merodach-Bai.adan  (restored)  J 

702 

BeIvIBUS  (viceroy) 

699 

696  (?) 

AssARANADiu.s  (viceroy) 

SUSUB 

f  Babylon   revolts.       Revolt    put 
(.     down. 

694  (?) 

693 
692 
688 

Ditto. 

REGIBELu.S  (viceroy) 

MESE.SIMORDACHUS  (viceroy)  .    .    . 
luterregnuiu      

Troubles   iu    Babylon.       Inter- 
regnum of  eight  years,  coin- 
ciding with   last  eight   years 

of  Sennacherib. 

680 

Ksar-haddou 

f  Babylon     recovered    by    Esar- 
\     haddon. 

(  Babylon  revolts  and   again   re- 
1,      turns  to  allegiance. 

667 
647 

Saos-duchinus  (viceroy) 

CiNNELADANUS(or  Asshur-bani-pal) 

Asshur-baui-pal  .    . 

626 

Nebo-sum-iskun  (?) 

Asshur-emid-iliu. 

625 

Nabopol.\.ss.\r 

AssjTian  Empire  destroyed. 
'  Nebuchadnezzar     carries     the 
\     Jews  into  captivity. 

605 
561 

Nebuchadnezzar  

Evil-Merodach 

559 

Neriglissar 

556 

Laborosoarchod  

555 
538 

Nabonadiu,s 

r  Babylon    taken   by   Cyrus  the 
I      Great  of  Persia. 

J  Conquest  of  Babvlou  by  Cyrus  \ 
I     the  Great  of  Pe'rsia.                     ( 

aVILlZA  TION. 


279 


SECTION    III.— BABYLONIAN    CIVILIZATION. 


AYS  Professor  Rawlinson:  "In 
its  general  characfler  the  Baby- 
lonian Empire  wa.s  little  more 
than  a  reproducflion  of  the  As- 
syrian. The  same  loose  or- 
ganization of  the  provinces  nnder  native 
kings  rather  than  satraps  almost  universally 
prevailed,  with  the  same  duties  on  the  part 
of  suzerain  and  subjects,  and  the  same  re- 
sults of  ever-recurring  revolt  and  re-con- 
quest. Similar  means  were  employed  under 
both  empires  to  check  and  discourage  rebell- 
ion— mutilations  and  executions  of  chiefs, 
pillage  of  the  rebellious  region,  and  whole- 
sale deportation  of  its  population.  Baby- 
lon, equally  with  Assyria,  failed  to  win  the 
affedtions  of  the  subject  nations,  and,  as  a 
natural  result,  received  no  help  from  them 
in  her  hour  of  need.  Her  system  was  to 
exhaust  and  oppress  the  conquered  races  for 
the  supposed  benefit  of  the  conquerors,  and 
to  impoverish  the  provinces  for  the  adorn- 
ment and  enrichment  of  the  capital.  The 
wisest  of  her  monarchs  thought  it  enough 
to  construct  works  of  public  utility  in  Baby- 
lonia proper,  leaving  the  dependent  coun- 
tries to  themselves,  and  doing  nothing  to 
develop  their  resources.  This  selfish  .sj-stem 
was,  like  most  selfishness,  short-sighted;  it 
alienated  those  whom  it  would  have  been 
true  policy  to  conciliate  and  win.  When 
the  time  of  peril  came,  the  subjecfl  nations 
were  no  source  of  strength  to  the  menaced 
empire.  On  the  contrary,  it  would  seem 
that  some  even  turned  against  her  and  made 
common  cause  with  the  assailants. 

"Babylonian  civilization  differed  in  many 
respedts  from  Assyrian,  to  which  however 
it  approached  more  nearly  than  to  any  other 
known  type.  Its  advantages  over  As.syr- 
ian  were  in  its  greater  originality,  its  su- 
perior literary  charadler,  and  its  com- 
parative width  and  flexibility.  Babylonia 
seems  to  have  been  the  source  from  which 
Assyria    drew    her    learning,    such    as    it 


was,  her  architecture,  the  main  ideas  of 
her  mimetic  art,  her  religious  notions,  her 
legal  forms,  and  a  vast  number  of  her  cus- 
toms and  usages.  But  Babylonia  herself, 
so  far  as  we  know,  drew  her  stores  from  no 
foreign  country.  Hers  was  apparently  the 
genius  which  excogitated  an  alphabet — 
worked  out  the  simpler  problems  of  arithme- 
tic— invented  implements  for  measuring  the 
lap.se  of  time — conceived  the  idea  of  raising 
enormous  structures  with  the  poorest  of  all 
materials,  clay — discovered  the  art  of  pol- 
i.shing,  boring,  and  engraving  gem.s — repro- 
duced with  truthfulness  the  outlines  of 
human  and  animal  forms — attained  to  high 
perfedtion  in  textile  fabrics — studied  with 
success  the  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
— conceived  of  grammar  as  a  science — elab- 
orated a  system  of  law — saw  the  \-alue  of 
an  exadt  chronology  —  in  almost  every 
branch  of  science  made  a  beginning,  thus 
rendering  it  comparatively  easy  for  other 
nations  to  proceed  with  the  superstrudture. 
To  Babylonia,  far  more  than  to  Egypt,  we 
owe  the  art  and  learning  of  the  Greeks.  It 
was  from  the  East,  not  from  Egypt,  that 
Greece  derived  her  architedture,  her  sculp- 
ture, her  .science,  her  philosophy,  her  mathe- 
matical knowledge — in  a  word,  her  intelledl- 
ual  life.  And  Babylon  was  the  .source  to 
which  the  entire  stream  of  Eastern  civiliza- 
tion may  be  traced.  It  is  .scarcely  too  much 
to  say  that,  but  for  Babylon,  real  civilization 
might  not  even  yet  have  dawned  upon  the 
earth.  Mankind  might  never  have  advanced 
beyond  that  spurious  and  false  form  of  it 
which  in  Egy'pt,  India,  China,  Japan,  Mex- 
ico, and  Peru,  contented  the  aspirations  of 
the  .species." 

The  later  Babylonians  were  a  mixed  race, 
as  were  the  early  ChaJdceans,  from  whom 
they  were  mainly  descended.  The  Chaldae- 
ans  of  the  First  Empire  were  chiefly  a  mixed 
Hamitic,  or  Cushite,  and  Turanian  race,  with 
a  slight  intenningling  of  Semitic  and  Aryan 


28o 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— BABYLONIA. 


■elements.  But  the  Babylonians  of  the  later 
period — called  Chaldaeans  by  the  Hebrew 
prophets — were  still  more  of  a  composite 
race,  on  account  of  the  colonization  of  for- 
eigners in  Babylonia  in  accordance  with  the 
policy  of  the  Assyrian  kings,  and  because 
of  the  influence  exerted  upon  them  by  their 
Assyrian  conquerors.  The  conquest  of 
Chaldsea  by  the  Arabian  dynasty  B.  C.  1546, 
and  the  Assyrian  conquest  of  the  same  coun- 
try B.  C.  1300,  establishing  an  Assyrian 
Toyal  race  upon  the  Chaldsean  throne,  tended 
to  the  fusion  of  new  Semitic  elements  with 
the  old  Chaldaean  population,  as  both  the 
Arabs  and  the  Assyrians  were  prominent 
branches  of  the  Semitic  race. 

Semitic  dynasties  reigning  in  Chaldsea 
would  naturally  tend  to  the  introducftion  of 
new  Semitic  blood  into  that  old  land,  and 
bring  along  Semitic  customs  and  ideas,  and 
causing  the  old  Turano-Cushite  language  of 
ancient  Chaldasa  to  give  way  to  a  Semitic 
tongue.  The  original  Chaldaean  population 
gradually  became  intermingled  with  the 
new  Semitic  settlers,  thus  tending  to  the 
produdtion  of  a  nation  composed  about 
equally  of  Semitic,  Turanian  and  Cushite, 
or  Hamitic  elements.  The  colonizations  of 
the  Sargonid  dynasty  brought,  in  addition, 
small  proportions  of  other  foreign  elements, 
so  that  the  later  Babylonians  could  more 
appropriately  be  called  a  ' '  mingled  people ' ' 
than  any  other  ancient  nation  of  Western 
Asia.  By  the  time  of  the  Later  Empire  the 
Babylonians  had  become  thoroughly  Semi- 
tized,  as  the  vitality  and  energy  of  the  Se- 
mitic elements  fused  in  the  population  pre- 
dominated over  the  original  Cushite  and 
Turanian  elements;  so  that  the  later  Baby- 
lonians were  scarcely  distinguishable  from 
their  northern  neighbors,  the  Assyrians. 
The  Greek  writers  seem  to  have  regarded 
the  Assyrians  and  Babylonians  as  one  and 
the  same  race  of  people,  and  as  having  a 
common  civilization. 

The  Babylonian  cylinders  and  three  or 
four  representations  by  Babylonian  artists 
give  us  some  scant  idea  of  the  physical 
charatfleristics  of  this  renowned  ancient  peo- 
ple.    Among   these   remains   is   the   repre- 


sentation of  a  Babylonian  king,  believed  to 
be  Merodach-iddin-ahki,  on  a  black  stone  in 
the  British  Museum ;  also  representations  of 
the  warrior  and  the  priest  in  the  tablet  from 
Sir-Pal-i-Zohab,  the  man  accompanying  the 
Babylonian  hound,  and  some  imperfedl  fig- 
ures on  a  frieze.  A  few  Assyrian  bas-reliefs 
represent  Assyrian  campaigns  in  Babylonia. 
The  Babylonian  cylinders  represent  the 
Babylonians  as  of  far  slighter  and  sparer 
physical  frames  than  the  Assyrians;  but  the 
Assyrian  sculptures  .show  the  Babylonians 
as  having  bodily  forms  as  brawny  and  mas- 
sive as  their  northern  neighbors,  while  the 
features  of  the  two  peoples  were  very  nearly 
alike.  The  Assyrian  sculptures  represent 
the  physiognomy  of  the  Babylonians  as  dis- 
tinguished by  a  low  and  straight  but  some- 
what depressed  forehead,  full  lips,  and  a  well- 
marked,  rounded  chin.  The  few  remaining 
Babylonian  sculptures  sustain  the  corre<5t- 
ness  of  the  Assyrian,  but  represent  the  eye 
as  larger  and  less  almond-shaped,  the  nose 
as  shorter  and  more  depressed,  and  the  gen- 
eral expression  of  the  countenance  as  more 
common-place.  These  differences  are  to  be 
ascribed  to  the  influence  exerted  upon  the 
phj'sicial  form  of  the  race  by  the  primitive 
Cushite  Chaldaean  element.  Herodotus 
states  that  the  Babylonians  wore  their  hair 
long,  and  this  statement  is  sustained  by  the 
Babylonian  sculptures.  These  sculptures 
commonly  represent  the  hair  as  forming  a 
single  stiff  and  heavy  curl  at  the  back  of  the 
head,  but  sometimes  they  give  it  the  form 
of  long  flowing  locks  depending  over  the 
back,  or  over  the  back  and  shoulders,  extend- 
ing almost  to  the  waist.  Sometimes  we 
find  types  closely  resembling  the  Assyrian, 
the  hair  forming  a  round  mass  behind  the 
head,  on  which  there  appears  to  have  been 
sometimes  a  slight  wave.  The  style  men- 
tioned by  Herodotus  was  the  national 
fashion,  and  is  represented  by  the  three 
usual  modes.  The  round  mass  was  an  As- 
syrian style,  aped  by  the  Babj'lonians  during 
their  subje<5lion  to  AssjT-ia.  The  Assyrian 
sculptures  represent  the  hair  of  the  Baby- 
lonians as  reaching  below  the  shoulders,  and 
as  worn  smooth  on  the  top  of  the  head  and 


CI  VI  1. 1 ZA  TION. 


281 


depending  from  the  ears  to  the  shoulders  in 
many  large,  smooth,  heavy  curls. 

The  Babylonians  are  likewise  often  repre- 
sented with  a  large  beard,  usually  longer 
than  the  Assyrian,  and  reaching  almost 
down  to  the  waist.  Sometimes  it  curls 
crisply  upon  the  face,  but  below  the  chin  it 
depends  over  the  breast  in  long  straight 
locks,  while  in  other  ca.ses  it  droops  perpen- 
dicularly from  the  cheeks  and  the  lower  lip; 
but  here  the  Assyrian  sculptures  represent 
the  Babylonian  beard  as  little  longer  than 
the  Assyrian,  Often  there  is  no  beard,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  priests. 

The  Assyrian  sculptures  also  represent 
the  Babylonian  women  as  tall  and  large- 
limbed,  with  the  Assyrian  physiognomy, 
and  with  not  very^  abundant  hair;  but  the 
Babylonian  cylinders  make  the  hair  appear 
long  and  prominent,  while  the  physical 
fonns  are  as  spare  and  meagre  as  those  of 
the  male  sex. 

It  is  evident  that  altogether  the  physical 
types  of  the  A.ssyrians  and  Bab3-lonians 
were  very  nearly  alike,  though  the  Baby- 
lonians had  a  somewhat  sparer  form,  longer 
and  more  flowing  hair,  less  strong  and  stern 
features,  and  a  darker  complexion.  The 
last  characteristic  is  to  be  attributed  partly 
to  the  infusion  of  Ethiopian  elements  in  the 
population,  and  partly  to  their  more  tropi- 
cal location.  Babylonia  being  four  degrees 
farther  south  than  A.ssyria.  The  Cha'ab 
Arabs,  who  now  occupy  the  southern  parts 
of  the  ancient  Babylonia,  are  almost  black; 
while  the  ".black  Syrians,"  mentioned  hy 
Strabo,  were  probably  the  Babylonians. 

The  Babylonians  were  distinguished  for 
their  intelledlual  ability.  They  inherited 
the  scientific  lore  of  their  predecessors,  the 
early  Chaldseans,  whose  astronomical  and 
mathematical  knowledge  they  not  only  re- 
tained, but  advanced  and  enlarged  by  their 
exertions.  The  fame  of  their  ' '  wisdom  and 
learning"  is  recorded  by  the  Jewish  proph- 
ets. In  alluding  to  them,  I.saiah  said:  "Thy 
wisdom  and  thy  knowledge,  it  hath  per- 
verted thee."  Says  Jeremiah:  "A  sword 
is  upon  the  Chald£can,s,  saitli  the  I/)rd,  and 
iipon  the  inhabitants  of  Babylon,  and  upon 
1— 18,-U.  H. 


her  princes,  and  iijwn  her  wise  men." 
Daniel  alludes  to  "the  learning  and  the 
tongue  of  the  Chalda;ans."  Herodotus 
mentions  their  useful  inventions,  and  Aris- 
totle was  indebted  to  them  for  .scientific  data. 
They  were  celebrated  for  their  observations 
of  astronomical  phenomena,  and  their  care- 
ful records  of  these  observations.  They 
were  also  famed  as  mathematicians.  But 
unfortunately  their  astronomy  w'as  corrupted 
by  astrology;  and  they  professed  to  cast  na- 
tivities, interpret  dreams,  and  foretell  future 
occurrences  by  means  of  the  stars,  thus 
tinging  their  astronomy  with  a  mystic  and 
unscientific  element;  though  there  were  al- 
ways some  who  confined  them.selves  to  pure 
science  and  repudiated  all  astrological  pre- 
tensions. 

The  Babj'lonians  w^ere  al.so  a  ^■en,'  enter- 
prising people.  Their  adlive  spirit  led  them 
to  engage  extensively  in  manufadlures  and 
connnerce  by  sea  and  land.  The  same  com- 
mercial spirit  which  so  distinguished  the 
ancient  Phcenicians,  and  which  has  made 
the  modern  Jews  such  successful  merchants, 
charadlerized  the  Semitized  Babylonians, 
whose  land  the  Jewish  prophet  Ezekiel 
called  ' '  a  land  of  traffic, ' '  and  whose  chief 
city  Isaiah  described  as  "a  cit}'  of  mer- 
chants."  The  trading  spirit  of  the  Baby- 
lonians developed  in  them  the  opposite  vices 
of  avarice  and  fondness  for  luxury.  They 
"coveted  with  an  evil  covetousness,"  as  we 
are  informed  by  the  Jewish  writers  Habak- 
kuk  and  Jeremiah.  The  "shameful  cus- 
tom" which  Herodotus  relates,  requiring  of 
every  Babylonian  woman,  rich  or  poor, 
high-bom  or  humble,  prostitution  as  a  relig- 
ious duty  in  the  great  temple  of  Beltis  at 
Babjlon  once  in  her  life,  w-as  probably  dic- 
tated by  this  spirit  of  greed,  for  the  purpose 
of  attacling  strangers  to  the  capital;  as  was 
also  the  custom  of  selling  the  marriageable 
virgins  at  public  aucftion,  which  Herod- 
otus also  mentions.  Ouintus  Curtius,  the 
Roman  writer,  also  says  tliat  the  avarice  of 
husbands  and  parents  induced  them  to  .sell 
the  virtue  of  their  wives  and  daughters  to 
strangers. 

Both  sacred  and  profane  writers  continu- 


282 


ANCIENT   HISTOR Y.—BAB YLONIA. 


ally  dwell  upon  the  luxury  of  the  Babylo- 
nians. We  are  informed  by  Isaiah  that  the 
"daughter  of  the  Chaldeans"  was  "tender 
and  delicate,"  "given  to  pleasures,"  dis- 
posed to  "dwell  carelessly."  Ezekiel  tells 
us  that  her  young  men  made  them.selves  "as 
princes  to  look  at — exceeding  in  dyed  attire 
upon  their  heads."  Nicolas  of  Dama,scus 
relates  that  these  young  men  painted  their 
faces,  wore  ear-rings,  and  dressed  in  robes  of 
rich  and  soft  material.  Polygamy  prevailed 
extensively.  The  pleasures  of  the  table 
were  indulged  in  to  excess,  and  drunkenness 
was  a  general  vice.  Rich  unguents,  so  cele- 
brated by  Posidonius,  were  likewise  in- 
vented. The  tables  were  loaded  with  gold 
and  silver  plate,  according  to  Nicolas  of 
Damascus.  In  short,  the  Babylonians  ut- 
terly abandoned  themselves  to  self-indul- 
gence and  luxurious  living. 

They  ne^'ertheless  were  always  brave  and 
skillful  in  war,  and  in  the  height  of  their 
glory  they  were  one  of  the  most  formidable 
of  the  Oriental  nations.  The  Jewish  prophet 
Habakkuk  speaks  of  them  as  "  the  Chal- 
daeans,  that  bitter  and  hasty  nation,"  and 
also  as  ' '  terrible  and  dreadful — their  horses' 
hoofs  swifter  than  the  leopard's,  and  more 
fierce  than  the  evening  wolves."  Isaiah 
says  that  they  "smote  the  people  in  wrath 
with  a  continual  stroke,"  and  that  they 
' '  made  the  earth  to  tremble,  and  did  shake 
kingdoms."  In  their  great  enterprises  they 
swept  everything  before  them  with  irresisti- 
ble force,  in  spite  of  all  opposition,  and  un- 
moved by  the  calls  of  mere}'.  Centuries  of 
warfare  with  the  well-armed  and  well-disci- 
plined Assyrians  made  the  Babylonians  the 
worthy  successors  of  the  nation  which  had 
so  long  held  them  in  subje(5lion,  so  far  as 
the  warlike  virtues  of  energy,  valor  and  mil- 
iary skill  are  concerned.  They  extended 
their  conquests  from  the  Persian  Gulf  on  the 
east  to  the  Nile  on  the  west.  Their  invinci- 
ble hosts  of  sturdy  warriors  speedily  crushed 
all  resistance  and  rapidly  established  the 
Babylonian  dominion,  fully  deserving  the 
title  of  "the  hammer  of  the  whole  earth," 
given  them  by  the  prophet  Jeremiah. 

The  Babylonians  stained  their  triumphs 


in  war  with  useless  violence  and  with  the 
usual  Oriental  outrages.  The  Assyrian 
policy'  of  wholesale  deportation  of  conquered 
nations  was  pratfticed  by  them,  regardless 
of  the  sufferings  which  resulted  in  conse- 
quence. Such  needless  and  inexcusable  ac- 
trocities  as  the  mutilation  of  captives,  the 
long  imprisonments,  the  massacre  of  non- 
combatants,  the  execution  of  children  before 
the  eyes  of  their  fathers,  disgraced  the  mili- 
tary annals  of  the  Babylonians,  and  exas- 
perated more  than  they  terrified  the  subju- 
gated nations,  thus  weakening  instead  of 
strengthening  the  empire.  These  barbarous 
punishments  indicate  the  general  Asiatic 
temper — a  temper  inhuman  and  savage. 
The  tiger-like  thirst  for  blood  which  charac- 
terized the  Babylonians  led  them  to  sacrifice 
their  national  self-interest  and  the  peace  of 
the  empire  to  the  promptings  of  a  spirit  of 
vengeance. 

The  Babylonian  nobles  stood  in  danger 
of  losing  their  own  heads  if  by  the  most 
trifling  fault  they  aroused  the  sovereign's 
displeasure.  The  venerable  ' '  Chaldaeaus, ' ' 
so  famed  for  their  ' '  wisdom  and  learning, ' ' 
were  at  one  time  threatened  with  extermi- 
nation because  they  failed  to  interpret  a 
dream  forgotten  by  the  king.  If  a  monarch 
incurred  the  displeasure  of  his  court,  and 
was  considered  as  showing  a  bad  disposition, 
he  was  put  to  death  by  torture.  Such  pun- 
ishments as  cutting  to  pieces  and  casting 
into  a  fiery  furnace  prevailed,  as  related  by 
the  prophet  Daniel,  who  also  informs  us 
that  the  houses  of  offenders  were  torn  down 
and  turned  into  dung-hills.  These  harsh 
practices  indicate  the  height  of  Eastern  cru- 
elty. When  the  prophet  Habakkuk  de- 
nounced the  final  judgment  against  Baby- 
lon, it  was  announced  as  being  inflidted 
"because  of  men's  blood,  and  for  the  vio- 
lence of  the  land — of  the  city,  and  all  that 
dwelt  therein." 

Pride  was  another  fault  of  the  Baby- 
lonians, as  it  has  ever  been  the  accompani- 
ment of  military  success  in  a  nation.  The 
sudden  transfer  of  supremacy  in  the  Meso- 
potamian  region  from  Assyria  to  Babylonia 
awakened  a  haughty  spirit  in  the  hitherto- 


CIVILIZATION. 


283 


snhje(!^  kingdom.  The  Babylonians  in  the 
zenith  of  their  power  and  glory  quite  natur- 
ally regarded  themselves  as  the  greatest 
nation  on  earth;  and  this  spirit  was  distin(5lly 
nianifcsted  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  who,  when 
walking  in  his  palace  and  viewing  the  splen- 
did edifices  which  he  had  erected  on  all  sides 
from  the  plunder  of  his  conquests,  and  by 
tbe  forced  labor  of  his  captives,  exclaimed: 
"Is  not  this  great  Babylon,  that  I  have  built 
for  the  house  of  the  kingdom  by  the  might 
of  my  power,  and  for  the  honor  of  ray  ma- 
jesty 1"  The  arrogance  of  the  Babylonians 
was  as  intense  and  as  deep-seated  as  that  of 
the  Assyrians,  if  not  so  offensive.  Truly  did 
Isaiah  say,  in  alluding  to  this  people:  "Thou 
that  art  given  to  pleasure,  that  dwellest 
carelessly,  that  sayest  in  thine  heart,  I  am, 
and  none  else  besides  me. ' ' 

The  Babylonians,  in  spite  of  their  pride, 
cruelt}%  covetousness,  and  fondness  for 
luxury,  were  a  ver\-  religious  people.  In 
Babylonia  the  temple  held  nearly  the  same 
preeminence  over  other  edifices  which  it  pos- 
sessed in  Egypt.  The  immense  ruins  of  the 
Birs-i-Nimrud  show  the  degree  of  labor  ex- 
pended in  the  construdlion  of  sacred  build- 
ings, and  the  costly  oniamentation  of  these 
strudlures  is  more  wonderful  than  their  vast 
dimensions.  Immense  sums  were  expended 
on  the  idols,  and  the  entire  appendages  of 
worship  displayed  indescribable  pomp  and 
magnificence.  The  kings  devoutlj^  wor- 
.shiped  the  various  deities,  and  devoted  con- 
.siderable  attention  to  building  and  repairing 
temples,  erecfling  images  of  the  gods,  etc. 
The  names  given  their  children  showed 
their  religious  feeling  and  their  a<5lual  faith 
in  the  power  of  the  gods  to  protetft  their 
devotees.  Thus  Nabu-kuduri-izzir  means 
"  Nebo  is  the  protecftor  of  landmarks;'" 
Bel-shar-izzir  means  "  Bel protedts  the  king;" 
and  Evil-Merodacli  implies  "  Merodach  is  a 
god."  The  people  in  general  used  names 
of  the  same  kind,  containing  in  nearly  every 
case  the  name  of  a  god  as  an  element,  such 
as  Belibus,  Belesis,  Nergal-shar-ezer,  vSham- 
gar-nebo,  Nebu-zar-adan,  Nabonidus,  etc. 
The  .seals  and  signets  worn  by  each  man 
were  almost  universally  of  a  religious  char- 


acfter.  Even  in  banquets  and  entertainments, 
while  drinking,  they  uttered  praises  of  the 
deities.  Says  the  prophet  Daniel:  "They 
drank  wine,  and  praised  the  gods  of  gold, 
and  of  silver,  of  brass,  of  iron,  of  wood  and 
of  stone." 

Nicolas  of  Damascus  tells  us  that  the 
Babylonians  specially  cultivated  the  virtues 
of  honesty  and  calmness.  The  facft  that 
their  trade  was  flourishing,  that  their  pro- 
dudls  were  everywhere  in  demand,  suffici- 
ently proves  their  commercial  honest}-. 

Babylon  was  perhaps  the  largest  and 
most  splendid  city  of  the  ancient  Eastern 
world.  On  its  site  great  masses  of  ruins 
cover  a  space  much  larger  than  those  of 
Nineveh.  Beyond  this  space  in  all  direc- 
tions are  seen  detached  mounds,  showing 
that  there  existed  in  past  times  vast  edifices, 
while  spaces  between  the  mounds  indicate 
that  there  also  were  buildings  in  fonner 
ages.  Modern  investigation  and  exploration 
give  us  no  definite  idea  of  the  size  of 
Babylon. 

Herodotus  says  that  the  enceinte  of  Baby- 
lon was  a  square,  one  hundred  and  twenty 
stadia  (about  fourteen  miles)  each  waj-,  so 
that  the  whole  circuit  of  the  walls  was  fifty- 
six  miles,  and  the  area  enclosed  within 
them  less  than  two  hundred  square  miles. 
Ctesias,  who,  like  Herodotus,  saw?  the  city 
itself,  gave  the  circuit  of  the  walls  an  extent 
of  three  hundred  and  sixty  stadia,  or  forty- 
one  miles,  thus  representing  the  area  as  little 
more  than  one  hundred  square  miles.  Cli- 
tarchus  gave  the  circumference  as  three 
hundred  and  sixty-five  stadia;  Quintus  Cur- 
tius  as  three  hundred  and  .sixty-eight  stadia; 
Strabo  as  three  hundred  and  eighty-five 
stadia.  Quintus  Curtius  tells  us  that  there 
was  a  clear  space  of  a  quarter  of  a  mile  be- 
tween the  city  and  the  wall.  The  walls  of 
the  cit)'  were  pierced  with  a  hundred  gates, 
and  the  streets  or  roads  led  direcflly  to  these 
portals.  The  houses  were  usually  three  or 
four  stories  high,  and  arc  said  to  have  had 
vaulted  roofs,  improte(5ted  on  the  outside 
with  an>-  tiling,  because  the  dryness  of  the 
climate  rendered  such  protecT:ion  unneces- 
sary.     The   beams  of   the   houses  were  of 


284 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR }'.—  /?.  //.' )  'L  ( WIA. 


palm-wood,  the  only  plentiful  timber  in  the 
countrj-.  The  pillars  were  posts  of  palm- 
wood  with  twisted  wisps  of  rushes  around 
them,  covered  with  plaster  and  colored. 

The  Euphrates  flowed  through  the  city, 
dividing  it  into  two  almost  equal  parts.  Its 
banks  were  lined  all  the  way  with  quays  of 
brick,  laid  in  bitumen,  and  were  also  guarded 
by  two  brick  walls  skirting  them  along  their 
entire  extent.  Each  of  these  walls  had 
twenty-five  gates,  corresponding  to  the  num- 
ber of  streets  extending  upon  the  river. 
Outside  each  gate  there  was  an  inclined 
landing-place,  by  which  the  water's  edge 
could  be  reached.  Boats  kept  at  these  land- 
ing-places conveyed  'passengers  across  the 
river.  The  river  was  also  crossed  by  a 
bridge  consisting  of  a  number  of  stone  piers 
ere<5ted  in  the  channel,  firmly  held  together 
with  fastenings  of  iron  and  lead,  and  con- 
necfted  only  during  the  day  by  wooden  draw- 
bridges, on  which  people  passed  over,  and 
which  were  removed  at  night  to  prevent  the 
use  of  the  bridge  in  the  dark.  Diodorus 
gives  this  bridge  a  length  of  five  stadia 
(about  one  thousand  yards)  and  a  width  of 
thirty  feet.  He  also  says  that  there  was  a 
tunnel  under  the  river,  connedting  its  two 
sides,  and  that  it  was  fifteen  feet  broad  and 
twelve  feet  high  to  the  spring  of  its  arched 
roof. 

The  most  remarkable  edifices  of  Babylon 
were  its  two  palaces,  one  on  each  side  of  the 
river,  and  the  great  temple  of  Bel.  Herod- 
otus describes  the  great  temple  as  sur- 
rounded by  a  square  enclosure,  two  stadia 
(almost  a  quarter  of  a  mile)  long,  and  as 
wide.  Its  main  feature  was  the  ziggurat,  or 
tower,  a  gigantic  solid  mass  of  brick-work, 
built  in  the  same  manner  as  all  other  Baby- 
lonian temple-towers,  in  stages,  with  square 
upon  square,  thus  forming  a  rude  pyramid, 
with  a  shrine  of  the  god  at  the  top.  The 
basement  platfomi  of  this  temple-tower, 
Herodotus  says,  was  a  stadium,  or  a  little 
over  two  hundred  yards,  each  waj'.  This 
tower  had  eight  stages,  and  the  ascent  to 
the  highest,  which  contained  the  shrine  of 
the  god,  was  on  the  outside,  and  consisted 
of  a  series  of  steps,  or  of  an  inclined  plane. 


carried  round  the  four  sides  of  the  strucflnre, 
and  leading  to  the  top  in  this  way.  Strabo 
says  that  the  tower  was  a  stadium  (six  hun- 
dred and  six  feet  and  nine  inches)  high,  but 
this  is  evidently  an  exaggeration.  About 
midwa}'  up  there  was  a  resting-place  pro- 
vided with  seats.  The  shrine  on  the  sum- 
mit of  the  stru(5lure  was  large  and  elegant. 
It  had  no  image  in  the  time  of  Herodotus, 
but  onl}'  a  golden  table  and  a  large  couch, 
covered  with  an  elegant  draperj';  but  Dio- 
dorus says  that  before  the  Persian  conquest 
of  Babylon  the  shrine  contained  gigantic 
golden  images  of  Bel,  Beltis  and  Ishtar  re- 
spedlively.  Two  golden  lions  were  in  front 
of  the  images  of  Beltis,  and  near  these  were 
two  colossal  .serpents  of  silver,  each  weigh- 
ing thirty  talents.  The  golden  table  was 
forty  feet  long  and  fifteen  feet  wide,  and  was 
in  front  of  the  statues.  Two  immense 
drinking-cups,  as  heavy  as  the  serpents, 
were  upon  the  golden  table.  The  shrine 
likewise  had  two  vast  censors  and  three  gold- 
en bowls  for  the  three  deities  respedtively. 

There  was  a  second  shrine,  or  chapel,  at 
the  base  of  the  tower.  In  the  time  of  He- 
rodotus this  shrine  contained  a  sitting  image 
of  Bel,  consisting  of  gold.  There  was  a 
golden  table  before  the  image,  and  a  golden 
stand  for  the  image  itself  The  Babylonian 
priests  informed  Herodotus  that  the  gold  of 
the  image,  table  and  stand  together  weighed 
eight  hundred  talents.  Before  the  Persian 
conquest  this  second  shrine  had  a  human 
figure  of  solid  gold  tweh'e  cubits  high.  The 
shrine  was  also  well  supplied  with  private 
offerings.  Within  the  sacred  enclosure  out- 
side the  stru(5ture  were  two  altars,  the 
smaller  one  of  gold  on  which  to  offer  suck- 
lings, and  the  larger  one  of  stone  on  which 
full-grown  victims  were  sacrificed,  and 
whereon  a  thousand  talents'  weight  of  frank- 
incense was  offered  yearly  at  the  festi\-al  of 
the  god. 

The  great  palace  was  larger  than  the 
great  temple.  Diodorus  says  that  it  was 
located  within  a  triple  enclosure,  and  that 
the  innermost  wall  was  twenty  stadia,  the 
middle  forty  stadia,  and  the  outermost  sixty 
stadia  (almost  seven  miles)  in  circumference. 


286 


ANCIENT   HIS  TOR  )  :~BAB  YL  ONI  A . 


The  outer  wall  was  entirely  built  of  plain 
baked  brick.  The  other  two  walls  were  built 
of  the  same  kind  of  brick  fronted  with  enam- 
eled bricks  representing  hunting  scenes. 
Quintus  Curtius  only  knew  of  one  enclosure, 
and  this  corresponded  to  the  inner  wall  of 
Diodorus,  having  a  circuit  of  twenty  stadia. 
Curtius  represented  this  wall  as  eighty  feet 
high,  and  its  foundations  as  lying  thirty 
feet  below  the  surface  of  the  ground.  Dio- 
dorus says  that  the  figures  in  the  hunting 
scenes  were  larger  than  life-size,  and  that 
they  embraced  a  large  variety  of  animal 
forms,  and  likewi.se  of  human  forms,  one  of 
a  man  thrusting  his  spear  through  a  lion, 
and  another  of  a  woman  on  hor.seback  aim- 
ing a  javelin  at  a  leopard.  These  last  the 
later  Greeks  supposed  to  represent  the  myth- 
ical Ninus  and  Semiramis.  The  palace 
was  said  to  have  had  three  gates,  two  of 
bronze,  which  had  to  be  opened  and  closed 
by  a  machine. 

The  "Hanging  Gardens" — regarded  by 
the  Greeks  as  one  of  the  "Seven  Wonders 
of  the  World" — were  the  chief  glory  of  the 
great  palace,  and  constituted  its  pleasure- 
ground.  This  remarkable  construcflion  was 
a  square,  each  side  measuring  four  hundred 
Greek  feet,  according  to  Diodorus.  It  rested 
upon  .several  tiers  of  open  arches,  built  one 
over  the  other,  and  bearing  at  each  stage,  or 
story,  a  solid  platfortn,  from  which  arose  the 
next  tier  of  arches.  The  strucfture  was 
seventy-five  feet  high,  and  at  the  top  it  was 
covered  with  a  vast  ma.ss  of  earth,  in  which 
were  grown  flowers  and  shrubs,  and  even 
the  largest  trees.  Quintus  Curtius  says  that 
the  trunks  of  some  of  these  trees  were 
twelve  feet  in  diameter,  and  Strabo  states 
that  some  of  the  piers  were  hollowed  and 
filled  with  earth  to  afford  nourishment  for 
the  roots  of  the  trees.  Water,  conveyed 
from  the  Euphrates  through  pipes,  was  said 
by  Strabo  to  have  been  raised  by  a  screw 
working  on  the  principle  of  Archimedes. 
There  was  a  layer  of  reeds  mixed  with  bitu- 
men, next  a  double  layer  of  burnt  brick 
cemented  with  gypsum,  and  then  a  coating 
of  sheet- lead,  between  the  bricks  and  the 
mass  of  soil,  to  protecft  the  building  against 


gradual  decay  by  the  moisture  penetrating 
the  brick-work.  The  garden  was  reached 
by  steps.  Stately  apartments  were  among 
the  arches  on  which  rested  the  strudlure,  on 
the  ascent  to  the  garden.  The  machinery 
which  raised  the  water  was  in  a  chamber 
within  the  stru(5ture.  The  objecft  of  the 
strucfture  was  to  produce  an  artificial  moun- 
tain. 

The  smaller  palace,  on  the  side  of  the 
river  oppo,site  the  larger  one,  was  also  sur- 
rounded by  a  triple  enclosure,  the  whole 
circuit,  according  to  Diodorus,  measuring 
thirty  stadia.  This  palace  contained  some 
bronze  statues,  believed  by  the  Greeks  to 
represent  the  god  Bel  and  the  legendary 
king  and  queen,  Ninus  and  Semiramis, 
along  with  their  officers.  Painted  and 
enameled  bricks  representing  war  and  hunt- 
ing scenes  covered  the  walls. 

The  walls  of  Babylon,  in  connection  with 
the  "Hanging  Gardens,"  were  among  the 
"Seven  Wonders  of  the  World."  Herodo- 
tus says  that  they  were  fifty  royal  cubits 
(alx)ut  eighty-five  English  feet)  wide. 
Strabo  and  Quintus  Curtius  gave  the  width 
as  thirty-two  feet.  Herodotus  assigned  the 
walls  a  height  of  two  hundred  royal  cubits, 
or  three  hundred  royal  feet  (about  three 
hundred  and  thirty-five  English  feet).  Cte- 
sias  gave  the  height  as  fifty  fathoms,  or 
three  hundred  ordinary  Greek  feet.  Pliny 
and  Solinus  made  the  altitude  two  hundred 
and  thirty-five  feet.  Philostratus  and  Quin- 
tus Curtius  assigned  the  walls  a  height  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  feet.  Clitarchus,  ac- 
cording to  Diodorus  Siculus,  and  Strabo 
gave  the  height  as  .seventy-five  feet. 

The  walls  were  made  of  bricks  cemented 
with  bitumen,  with  occasional  layers  of  reeds 
between  the  courses.  Outside  the  walls 
were  protedted  bj'  a  wide  and  deep  moat. 
Low  towers,  two  hundred  and  fifty  in  num- 
ber according  to  Diodorus  vSiculus,  and  ris- 
ing about  ten  or  fifteen  feet  above  the  walls 
according  to  Quintus  Curtius  and  Strabo, 
served  as  guard-rooms  for  the  defenders. 
Herodotus  says  the  space  between  the  tow- 
ers was  wide  "enough  for  a  four-horse  char- 
iot to  turn  in."     The  height  and  thickness 


CIVILIZATION. 


287 


of  the  walls  gave  them  their  strength  and 
rendered  scaling  and  inining^  utterly  hope- 
less. 

Such  was  the  mighty  Babylon  iu  the  day 
of  its  glory — a  great  city,  irregularly  built, 
surrounded  by  populous  suburbs  interspersed 
among  fields  and  gardens,  the  whole  in- 
cluded within  a  large  square  strongly-forti- 
fied enceinte,  or  wall  of  brick.  There  are  at 
present  few  vestiges  of  this  vast  and  magni- 
ficent metropolis  of  the  ancient  Oriental 
world.  As  Jeremiah  foretold,  "the  broad 
walls  of  Babylon"  are  "utterly  broken." 
As  Isaiah  predicted,  "the  golden  city 
ceased;"  truly  is  "it  a  possession  for  the 
bitteni,  and  pools  of  walls;"  it  has  been 
swept  "with  the  besom  of  destnidlion ; ' '  and 
"Babylon,  the  glory  of  kingdoms,  the 
beauty  of  the  Chaldees'  excellency,"  has 
become  "as  when  God  overthrew  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah."  As  Jeremiah  prophesied, 
Babylon  has  "become  heaps,"  "an  aston- 
ishment," and  "without  an  inhabitant." 
There  are  great  "heaps"  of  shapeless  and 
formless  mounds  scattered  at  intervals  over 
the  whole  region  where  ancient  Babylon 
was  located,  and  the  soil  between  the 
"heaps"  is  iu  many  instances  composed  of 
remnants  of  broken  pottery  and  bricks,  and 
deeply  impregnated  with  nitre,  which  indis- 
putably proves  that  the  site  was  at  one  time 
occupied  by  an  immense  mass  of  buildings. 
On  going  southward  from  Bagdad  these  re- 
mains gradually  increase,  and  between  Mo- 
hawil  and  the  Euphrates  they  are  continuous, 
forming  a  region  of  immense  mounds. 

These  mounds  connnence  about  five  miles 
above  the  modem  town  of  Hillah,  extend- 
ing more  than  three  miles  along  the  river 
from  north  to  south,  and  are  located  chiefly 
on  the  eastern  bank.  On  the  eastern  side 
the  ruins  consist  mainly  of  three  vast 
masses  of  ruined  buildings.  The  modern 
Arabs  call  the  most  northern  of  these  mounds 
Babil,  which  was  the  real  native  name  of 
the  great  ancient  city,  meaning  "  the  Gate 
of  II,"  or  "the  Gate  of  God."  The  Babil 
mound  is  an  immense  heap  of  brick-work 
shajjed  like  an  irregular  quadrilateral,  hav- 
ing precipitous  sides  with  ravines,  and  being 


flat  on  the  top.  The  southern  side  of 
the  ruin  is  the  most  perfed,  and  extends 
about  two  hundred  yards  direcflly  east  and 
west.  At  its  eastern  end  it  forms  a  right 
angle  with  the  eastern  side,  which  extends 
almost  due  north  in  a  diredl  line  for  about 
one  hundred  and  eighty  yards.  The  west- 
ern and  northern  sides  appear  to  be  much 
worn  away,  and  here  are  the  principal 
ravines.  The  Babil  mound,  whose  great- 
est height  is  about  one  hundred  and 
thirtj-  or  one  hundred  and  forty  feet,  con- 
sists chiefly  of  sun-dried  bricks,  but  ap- 
pears to  have  been  faced  with  fire-bumed 
bricks  skillfully  cemented  with  an  excellent 
white  mortar.  Nebuchadnezzar's  name  and 
titles  are  on  the  bricks  of  this  outer  facing. 
The  little  of  the  building  uncovered  shows 
that  the  lines  of  the  structure  were  perpen- 
dicular, and  that  the  side  walls  were  sup- 
ported by  buttresses  at  inter\'als. 

This  great  structure  was  situated  within  a 
square  enclosure,  the  northern  and  southern 
sides  of  which  are  yet  clearly  marked.  A 
low  line  of  rampart  extends  four  hundred 
\'ards  parallel  to  the  eastern  side  of  the  build- 
ing, about  one  hundred  and  twenty  or  one 
hundred  and  thirty  yards  distant  from  it, 
and  a  line  of  mound  a  little  longer  runs  par- 
allel to  the  northern  side,  but  more  distant 
from  it.  A  third  line  on  the  western  side 
traced  early  in  the  present  century  is  now 
obliterated.  On  the  western  and  .southern 
sides  are  the  remains  of  an  ancient  canal. 

The  Babil  mound  stands  isolated  from  the 
other  ruins,  and  below  it  are  two  mounds, 
the  more  northern  of  which  the  Arabs  call 
El  Kasr,  meaning  "the  Palace,"  and  the 
more  southeni  "the  mound  of  Amran," 
from  the  tomb  of  a  prophet  called  Amran- 
ibn-Ali,  crowning  its  summit.  The  Kasr 
mound  is  an  oblong  .square,  about  seven 
hundred  j-ards  from  north  to  south,  and 
about  six  hundred  yards  from  east  to 
west,  the  sides  facing  the  cardinal  points 
of  the  compass.  The  height  of  this 
mound  above  the  plain  is  seventy  feet. 
The  rubbi.sh  uncovered  by  exploration  is 
composed  of  loose  bricks,  tiles,  and  frag- 
meuts  of  stone.     An  underground  passage, 


288 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y.  —  BAB  YL  ON  I  A . 


seven  feet  liigli,  with  floor  and  walls  of 
baked  brick,  and  arched  at  the  top  with 
huge  sandstone  blocks,  has  been  discovered, 
and  is  believed  to  have  been  an  immense 
drain.  The  Kasr,  or  "palace"  proper,  is 
another  important  relic,  and  from  it  the 
mound  has  received  its  name.  This  consists 
of  excellent  brick  masonry,  remarkably  pre- 
served, in  the  form  of  walls,  piers  and  but- 
tresses, and  in  certain  places  ornamented 
with  pilasters.  The  bricks  are  of  a  pale 
yellow  color  and  of  excellent  quality,  and 
every  one  is  stamped  with  the  name  and 
titles  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  The  mortar  in 
which  they  are  laid  appears  like  a  fine  lime 
cement,  which  so  closely  adheres  to  the 
bricks  that  it  is  not  easy  to  get  a  specimen 
whole.  Many  fragments  of  brick,  painted, 
and  covered  with  a  thick  glaze  or  enamel, 
are  seen  in  the  dust  at  the  foot  of  the  walls. 
Here,  also,  have  been  discovered  a  few  frag- 
ments of  sculptured  stone,  among  which  is 
the  frieze  discovered  by  Layard;  and  slabs 
giving  an  account  of  the  ere(5tion  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar's palace  have  likewise  been 
found.  Near  the  northern  edge  of  the 
mound,  and  half-way  in  its  width,  is  a  gi- 
gantic figure  of  a  lion,  rudely  carved  in 
black  basalt,  standing  over  the  prostrate 
figure  of  a  man  with  extended  arms.  A 
solitary  tree  has  grown  out  of  the  great  ruin, 
which  the  Arabs  say  is  of  a  species  not  found 
elsewhere,  and  which  they  consider  a  rem- 
nant of  the  hanging,  garden  of  Bokht-i- 
nazar.  This  tree  is  a  tamarisk,  with  a 
strange  growth  and  foliage,  on  account  of 
its  great  age  and  its  exposed  situation. 

The  mound  of  Amran,  or  Jumjuma,  about 
eight  hundred  yards  south  of  the  Kasr 
mound,  has  an  irregular  and  ill-defined  tri- 
angular shape,  with  its  three  sides  re.specft- 
ively  a  little  east  of  north,  a  little  south  of 
east,  and  a  little  south  of  west.  The  south- 
western side,  which  runs  almost  parallel 
with  the  Euphrates,  appears  to  have  been  at 
one  time  washed  by  the  river,  and  is  over  a 
thousand  yards  long;  while  the  south-east- 
ern side  is  about  eight  hundred  yards  long, 
and  the  north-western  about  seven  hundred 
yards.   Countless  ravines  traverse  the  mound 


on  all  sides,  extending  almost  to  its  center, 
while  the  surface  is  altogether  undulating. 
Sculpture  or  masonrv'  can  nowhere  be  seen, 
but  only  a  mass  of  rubbish;  no  clear  out- 
lines of  buildings  being  thus  far  discovered. 
Bricks  bearing  the  names  and  titles  of  some 
of  the  earlier  Babylonian  kings  are  sometimes 
found,  but  not  the  slightest  vestige  of  a  wall 
has  been  brought  to  light. 

Among  other  remarkable  remains  are 
some  long  lines  of  rampart  on  both  sides  of 
the  Euphrates,  outside  of  the  other  ruins, 
enclosing  all  of  them,  excepting  the  Babil 
mound.  On  the  east  bank  of  the  river  are 
traces  of  a  double  line  of  wall,  or  rampart, 
running  almost  diredlly  north  and  south, 
and  situated  about  a  thousand  yards  east  of 
the  Kasr  and  Amran  mounds.  Beyond  this 
rampart  is  a  single  line  of  wall  to  the  north- 
east, which  can  be  traced  for  about  two 
miles,  running  in  a  direcftion  almost  from 
north-west  to  south-east,  and  a  double  line 
of  rampart  to  the  south-east,  which  can  be 
traced  for  a  mile  and  a  half,  extending  in  a 
direction  from  north-east  to  south-west. 
The  two  lines  of  this  last  rampart  are  be- 
tween six  hundred  and  seven  hundred  yards 
apart,  and  diverge  from  each  other  as  they 
extend  out  to  the  north-east.  The  inner 
line  connecfls  with  the  north-eastern  rampart 
almost  at  a  right  angle,  and  is  a  part  of  the 
same  work. 

A  low  line  of  mounds  can  be  traced  be- 
tween the  western  side  of  the  Amran  and 
Kasr  mounds  and  the  present  eastern  bank 
of  the  Euphrates,  enclosing  a  narrow  val- 
ley, in  which  the  main  stream,  or  a  branch 
of  it,  appears  to  have  flowed  in  ancient 
times. 

On  the  west  bank  of  the  river  are  ruins  of 
the  same  kind.  A  rampart  twenty  feet  high 
extends  for  almost  a  mile  parallel  with  the 
general  line  of  the  Amran  mound,  about  a 
thousand  yards  from  the  ancient  course  of 
the  stream.  Each  end  of  the  line  of  ram- 
part turns  at  a  right  angle,  extending  down 
towards  the  river,  and  can  be  traced  towards 
the  north  for  four  hundred  yards  and  to- 
wards the  south  for  fifty  or  sixty.  There 
are    evidences    that   before   the    Euphrates 


CIVILIZATION. 


289 


flowed  in  its  present  channel  there  was  a 
redlangular  enclosure,  a  mile  long  and  a 
thousand  yards  wide,  opposite  to  the  Amran 
mound;  and  at  the  south-east  angle  of  this 
enclosure  appears  to  have  been  an  import- 
ant edifice,  the  bricks  here  bearing  the  name 
of  Neriglissar. 

There  are  likewise  many  scattered  and  ir- 
regular heaps,  or  hillocks,  on  both  banks  of 
the  Euphrates;  most  of  them  on  the  east 
bank,  among  which  is  the  mound  called  by 
the  Arabs  El  Homeira,  "the  Red."  This 
mound  is  located  about  eight  hundred  yards 
due  east  of  the  Kasr  mound,  and  is  about 
three  hundred  yards  long  and  one  hundred 
wide,  and  sixty  or  seventy  feet  high.  It 
consists  of  baked  bricks  of  a  bright  red 
color,  which  are  inscribed  along  their  edges, 
and  not,  as  the  others,  on  their  lower  face. 

The  remains  of  a  brick  embankment  are 
also  traceable  on  the  east  bank  of  the  river  be- 
tween the  Babil  and  Kasr  mounds,  extending 
about  a  thousand  yards  in  a  slightly-curved 
line  and  a  general  direcSlion  of  south  by 
south-west.  The  bricks  of  this  embank- 
ment are  verj'  hard,  of  a  bright  red  color, 
and  are  wholly  laid  in  bitumen.  They  bear 
a  legend  showing  that  the  quay  was  con- 
strucfled  b\-  Nabonidus. 

All  the  ruins  of  Babylon  now  traceable 
are  found  in  a  space  not  much  over  three 
miles  long  and  a  mile  and  three-fourths 
wide.  These  remains  are  surrounded  on  all 
sides  by  nitrous  soil  and  low  mounds  which 
have  not  been  excavated,  but  which  are  be- 
lieved to  mark  the  locations  of  smaller  tem- 
ples and  other  public  edifices  of  the  re- 
nowned ancient  city.  Such  masses  are  most 
general  to  the  north  and  east,  and  often  ex- 
tend for  miles.  The  mass  of  Babjdonian 
ruins  reaching  from  Babil  to  Amran  covers 
an  area  about  as  large  as  the  Koyunjik 
mound  on  the  sight  of  Nineveh.  These 
Babylonian  ruins  appear  to  have  been  ' '  the 
heart  of  the  city,"  "the  royal  quarter." 
Says  Layard:  "Southward  of  Babil  for  the 
distance  of  three  miles  there  is  almost  an 
uninterrupted  line  of  mounds,  the  ruins  of 
vast  edifices,  collected  together  as  in  the 
heart  of  a  great  city. ' ' 


Thus  Babylon  vastly  exceeded  Nineveh 
in  its  dimensions.  The  Kasr  mound  indi- 
cates that  it  was  the  site  of  the  great  palace 
of  Nebuchadnezzar.  Tradition  has  given 
the  name  of  Kasr,  or  "Palace,"  to  this 
mound,  and  this  is  confirmed  by  the  in.scrip- 
tions  upon  slabs  found  here,  in  which  Nebu- 
chadnezzar calls  the  stru<5ture  his  "Grand 
Palace;"  while  all  the  bricks  of  that  portion 
of  the  ruin  remaining  uncovered  bear  that 
great  king's  name.  Diodorus  says  that  the 
walls  were  ornamented  with  sculptured  rep- 
resentations of  hunting  scenes;  and  modern 
exploration  has  brought  to  light  from  the 
soil  of  the  mound  vast  masses  of  fragments 
of  enameled  bricks  with  various  hues  and 
containing  portions  of  human  and  animal 
forms,  such  as  portions  of  a  lion,  of  a  horse, 
and  of  a  human  face. 

The  Amran  mound  is  believed  to  be  the 
site  of  the  old  palace  to  which  Nebuchad- 
nezzar's structure  was  an  addition.  Berosus 
says  that  Nebuchadnezzar's  edifice  adjoined 
upon  the  old  palace.  On  the  Amran  mound 
monuments  of  the  times  previous  to  Nebu- 
chadnezzar's day  have  been  found;  and  as 
the  early  Babjdonian  kings  only  left  memo- 
rials in  the  old  palace,  it  is  reasonable  to  in- 
fer that  this  mound  is  the  site  of  the  ancient 
royal  residence.  The  oblong-square  enclos- 
ure with  an  important  building  at  its  south- 
east angle  is  believed  to  have  been  the  sec- 
ond or  smaller  palace  of  Ctesias. 

The  ruin  now  known  as  the  Birs-i-Nim- 
rud,  about  eleven  or  twelve  miles  from  the 
Babil  mound,  has  been  supposed  by  some  to 
be  the  site  of  the  old  temple  of  Bel;  but  the 
cylinders  found  by  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson  in 
the  Birs-i-Nimrud  call  the  stru(flure  "the 
wonder  of  Borsippa,"  and  all  the  ancient 
authorities  say  that  Borsippa  was  a  city  by 
itself — a  town  wholly  distindt  from  Babylon. 
It  has  also  been  believed  that  the  Babil 
mound  itself  is  the  site  of  the  old  temple  of 
Bel — the  spot  on  which  was  l)uilt  the  Tower 
of  Babel.  The  great  difficulty  in  identify- 
ing this  site  with  the  old  temple  is  the  state- 
ment of  Herodotus  expres.sly  asserting  that 
the  temple  of  Bel  and  the  great  palace  were 
upon   opposite   sides  of   the  river,  whereas 


290 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y. — BAB  YL  ONI  A . 


the  Babil  and  Kasr  mounds  are  both  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  Euphrates. 

The  Babylonians  were  among  the  most 
ingenious  of  all  ancient  nations,  and  made 
great  progress  in  the  arts  and  sciences.  The 
classical  writers  usually  rank  them  with  the 
Egyptians  in  this  respeCl.  The  Babylonians 
especially  excelled  in  archite(5ture  and  as- 
tronomy. The  primitive  Chaldseans,  the 
ancestors  of  the  later  Babylonians,  first  ap- 
pear in  history  as  great  builders;  and  Nebu- 
chadnezzar, the  great  king  of  the  Later 
Babylonian  Empire,  specially  prided  himself 
upon  his  architedlural  works.  Herodotus, 
upon  visiting  Babylon,  was  mainly  im- 
pressed with  its  wonderful  edifices;  and  the 
glowing  descriptions  of  these  strucftures  by 
the  Greek  writers  have  mainly  given  to  the 
Babylonians  their  fame  and  their  high  rank 
among  the  great  nations  of  ancient  Asia. 

Their  architecfture  appears  to  have  culmin- 
ated in  the  temple.  The  temple  in  Baby- 
lonia occupied  the  same  rank  which  it  held 
in  Egypt  and  in  Greece,  and  unlike  in  As- 
syria, where  the  temple  was  a  mere  append- 
age of  the  palace.  The  temple  was  the 
great  edifice  of  a  city,  or  a  portion  of  a  city, 
being  higher  and  more  conspicuous  than  any 
other  building.  It  rivaled  the  palace  in 
every  respedl,  being  magnificently  adorned, 
and  having  offerings  of  enormous  value  de- 
posited in  it.  It  inspired  awe  by  its  religious 
associations,  and  was  not  only  a  place  of 
worship,  but  a  refuge  to  many  on  perilous 
occasions. 

The  Babylonian  temple  was  usually  sur- 
rounded by  a  walled  enclosure,  a  square  of 
two  stadia  each  way,  or  an  area  of  thirty 
acres.  The  temple  commonly  consisted  of 
two  parts.  The  siggurat,  or  tower,  was 
either  square  or  redlangular,  and  built  in 
stages,  as  high  as  seven,  or  as  low  as  two, 
in  number.  A  shrine  or  chapel  containing 
altars  and  images  was  at  the  top  of  the 
tower.  The  towers  were  ascended  on  the 
outside  by  means  of  winding  steps  or  an  in- 
clined plane.  Either  the  sides  or  the  angles 
of  the  tower  faced  the  cardinal  points  of  the 
compass.  Diodonis  Siculus  said  that  the 
towers  were  used  not  only  for  worship,  but 


also  as  observatories.  There  was  a  second 
shrine  or  chapel  at  the  base  of  the  tower,  in 
which  the  images  and  furniture  were  of  gold 
and  silver.  In  the  vicinity  of  this  lower 
shrine  was  a  golden  altar,  on  which  were 
sacrificed  various  kinds  of  vi(ftims. 

The  most  remarkable  of  Babylonian  ruins 
is  that  of  the  Birs-i-Nimrud,  or  ancient 
temple  of  Nebo  at  Borsippa.  Upon  a  crude 
brick  platform,  a  few  feet  above  the  level  of 
the  alluvial  plain,  was  ere<5led  the  basement 
stage  of  the  vast  studlure,  an  exadl  square, 
two  hundred  and  seventy-two  feet  each  way, 
and  twenty-six  feet  high.  The  second  stage 
was  just  as  high,  and  a  square  of  only  two 
hundred  and  thirty  feet,  twelve  feet  from 
the  south-western  edge  of  the  first  stage, 
and  thirty  feet  from  the  north-eastern  edge. 
The  third  stage  was  placed  the  same  way 
upon  the  second,  and  was  also  twenty-six 
feet  high,  and  a  square  of  one  hundred  and 
eighty-eight  feet.  The  fourth  stage  was 
fifteen  feet  high,  and  was  a  square  of  one 
hundred  and  forty-six  feet,  and  was  placed 
upon  the  third  in  the  same  way  as  the 
others  had  been  upon  those  below  them. 
The  fifth  stage  was  a  square  of  one  hundred 
and  four  feet,  the  sixth  a  square  of  sixty-two 
feet,  and  the  seventh  a  square  of  twenty 
feet.  These  stages  were  each  fifteen  feet 
high.  The  shrine  or  tabernacle  was  on  the 
seventh  and  highest  stage,  which  was  fifteen 
feet  high  and  square.  The  entire  stru(fture 
was  thus  one  hundred  and  fifty-six  feet 
high. 

This  temple  was  chiefly  ornamented  by 
means  of  color.  The  seven  stages  repre- 
sented the  Seven  Spheres  in  which  the  seven 
planets  were  believed  to  move.  Each  planet 
was  given  a  special  hue  or  tint.  The  sun 
was  golden,  the  moon  silver,  the  planet  Sa- 
turn black,  Jupiter  orange,  Mars  red,  Venus 
a  pale  yellow.  Mercury  a  deep  blue.  The 
basement  stage,  assigned  to  Satuni,  wa.s 
blackened  with  bitumen.  The  second  stage, 
that  of  Jupiter,  was  faced  with  burned  bricks 
of  an  orange  hue.  The  third  stage,  that  of 
Mars,  was  made  red  with  burned  bricks  of 
a  bright  red  clay.  The  fourth  stage,  that 
of  the  sun,  was  covered  with  plates  of  gold. 


CIVILIZATION. 


291 


The  fifth  stage,  that  of  Venus,  was  faced 
with  bricks  of  a  pale  yellow  tint.  The  sixth 
stage,  that  of  Mercury,  was  given  an  azure 
tint  by  vitrifa(5lion,  the  entire  stage  having 
been  subje<5led  to  a  great  heat  after  it  was 
erecfled,  which  gave  the  bricks  a  blue  color. 
The  seventh  stage,  that  of  the  moon,  was 
coated  with  silver  plates.  The  basement 
stage  had  a  number  of  square  recesses.  The 
third  stage  was  supported  by  a  number  of 
low  buttresses.  The  shrine  was  of  brick, 
and  is  believed  to  have  been  richly  orna- 
mented. The  tower  is  believed  to  have 
fronted  to  the  north-east,  on  which  side  was 
the  ascent,  believed  to  have  been  a  broad 
staircase  extending  along  the  entire  front  of 
the  strudlure.  The  side  platforms,  towards 
the  south-east  and  north-west,  were  occupied 
by  a  series  of  chambers  abutting  upon  the 
perpendicular  wall.  The  side  chambers 
communicated  with  vaulted  apartments 
within  the  solid  mass  of  the  edifice. 

The  Babylonian  palace  stood  upon  a  high 
mound  or  platform,  like  the  Assyrian  and 
the  Susianian  palace.  The  palace  mound 
was  usuallj'  square,  elevated  about  fifty  or 
sixty  feet.  It  was  built  chieflj^  of  sun-dried 
bricks,  enclo.sed  on  the  outside  bj'  burnt 
bricks,  and  also  on  the  inside.  The  whole 
was  carefully  drained,  and  the  waters  were 
conveyed  through  underground  channels  to 
the  level  of  the  plain  at  the  base  of  the 
mound.  The  Babylonian  palaces  are  so 
completely  ruined  that  no  full  description 
of  them  can  be  given  with  certainty.  The 
lines  of  the  edifice  were  straight,  the  walls 
arose  to  a  considerable  height  without  win- 
dows, and  numbers  of  pilasters  and  but- 
tresses broke  the  flatness  of  the  straight  line. 
The  palace  was  often  ornamented  with 
sculptured  stone  slabs,  on  which  were  care- 
fully-wrought figures  of  a  small  size.  Dio- 
dorus  states  that  the  general  ornamentation 
consisted  of  colored  representations  of  war- 
scenes  and  hunting-scenes  on  brick.  Many 
such  representations  have  been  found  on 
the  Kasr  mound.  They  are  alternated  with 
cuneiform  inscriptions,  in  white  and  on  a  blue 
ground,  or  with  a  patterning  of  rosettes  in 
the  same  colors.     The  ' '  Hanging  Gardens ' ' 


I  of  Babylon   have   already  l^een    described. 

The  Babylonian  domestic  architecture  was 
of  a  poor  and  coarse  style,  and  displayed 
little  taste.  The  houses  were  three  or  four 
stories  high,  but  were  of  a  rude  construcftion; 
the  pillars  were  palm  posts  surrounded  with 
wisps  of  rushes,  and  then  pla.stered  and 
painted. 

The  only  Babylonian  building  material 
was  brick,  consisting  of  two  kinds,  sun- 
dried  and  kiln-burned,  as  was  the  case  in 
ancient  Chaldsea  and  in  Assyria.  The  Baby- 
lonians, however,  only  applied  the  sun-dried 
bricks  to  the  platforms,  and  to  the  interior  of 
palace  mounds  and  of  very  thick  walls,  and 
never  made  that  kind  the  only  building  ma- 
terial. In  all  cases  there  was  at  least  a 
rcv^tcmcnt  of  kiln-dried  brick,  while  the 
more  .splendid  edifices  were  entirely  built  of 
that  kind.  The  baked  bricks  were  of  sev- 
eral kinds  and  .sizes.  The  finest  kind  were 
3'ellow,  another  kind  were  blackish-blue, 
while  the  ordinary  and  coarser  kind  were 
pink  or  red.  The  bricks  were  always 
shaped  square,  and  were  twelve  or  fourteen 
inches  long  and  wide,  and  from  three  to 
four  inches  thick.  Half-bricks  were  used 
in  alternate  rows  at  the  comers  of  buildings. 
They  were  always  made  with  a  mold,  and 
were  usually  stamped  on  one  face  with  an 
inscription.  They  were  commonly  laid  hor- 
izontally, though  sometimes  vertically,  sep- 
arated from  one  another  by  single  horizontal 
laj'ers. 

The  Babylonians  used  three  kinds  of  ce- 
ment in  their  buildings.  One  kind  was  a 
crude  clay,  or  mud,  mixed  with  chopped 
straw.  A  better  material  was  bitumen;  but 
the  niost  common  kind  was  mortar,  or  lime 
cement. 

There  are  few  remaining  specimens  of 
Babylonian  mimetic  art,  and  these  are 
mainly  fragmentarj',  and  worn  by  time  and 
exposure.  Besides  the  quaint  and  grotesque 
intaglios  on  seals  and  gems,  there  are  less 
than  a  half-dozen  .specimens  of  their  mimetic 
art  remaining.  There  is  a  sculpture  of 
a  lion  standing  over  the  prostrate  figure  of  a 
man,  yet  seen  on  the  Kasr  mound.  There 
arc  a  few  modeled  clay  figures.     One  is  a 


292 


ANCIENT  HISTOR Y.—BAD YLONIA. 


statuette  of  a  mother  with  a  child  seated  on 
a  rough  square  pedestal.  The  mother  is 
naked,  except  a  hood  on  the  head,  and  a 
narrow  apron  in  front.  The  child  sleeping 
on  her  left  ann  wears  a  short  tunic,  gathered 
into  plaits.  The  statuette  is  about  three 
and  a  half  inches  high.  There  is  a  figure 
of  a  king,  principally  remarkable  for  the 
elaborate  ornamentation  of  the  head-dress 
and  the  robes  engraved  on  a  large  black 
stone.  This  figure,  supposed  to  represent 
Merodach-iddin-akhi,  is  now  in  the  British 
Museum.  There  are  engraved  animal  forms 
on  black  stones,  such  as  the  figure  of  a  dog 
sitting  and  the  figure  of  a  bird.  The  en- 
gravings on  gems  and  cjdinders  are  grotesque 
figures  of  men  and  animals,  and  men  and 
monsters.  The  most  elaborate  and  artistic  of 
the  Babylonian  works  of  art  were  the  enam- 
elings  on  brick.  According  to  the  prophet 
Ezekiel  "the  images  of  the  Chaldasans,  por- 
trayed upon  the  wall,  were  vermilion." 
Other  colors  were  used  in  the  adornment  of 
palaces  and  public  edifices,  such  as  white, 
blue,  yellow,  red,  brown  and  black. 

The  Babylonians  also  made  considerable 
progress  in  the  mechanical  arts,  such  as  cut- 
ting, boring  and  engraving  hard  stones,  and 
the  arts  of  agriculture,  metallurgy,  pottery, 
weaving,  embroidery,  etc.  Besides  the 
softer  stones,  such  as  alabaster,  serpentine, 
and  lapis-lazuli,  the  Babylonian  artisans 
worked  the  harder  kinds,  such  as  agate, 
quartz,  jasper,  syenite,  cornelian,  lodestone, 
and  green  felspar,  or  amazon-stone.  The 
minuteness  of  the  work  in  some  of  the  Ba- 
bylonian seals  and  gems  indicates  that  they 
must  have  been  engraved  with  the  aid  of  a 
powerful  maguifying-glass.  The  art  of  cut- 
ting glass  was  well  understood. 

The  Babylonians  used  gold  and  silver  for 
statues,  furniture  and  utensils,  bronze  for 
gates  and  images,  and  iron  also  for  the  lat- 
ter. They  used  lead  and  iron  in  building. 
The  golden  images  were  sometimes  solid, 
and  .sometimes  only  plated.  The  silver  im- 
ages, ornamental  figures  and  utensils  are 
also  believed  to  have  been  solid.  The  city 
and  palace  gates  were  of  bronze.  The 
metal-work  of  personal  ornaments,  such  as 


bracelets,  armlets  and  dagger-handles,  re- 
sembled the  work  of  the  Assyrians.  Small 
bronze  figures  of  dogs,  monsters  and  gro- 
tesque figures  of  men,  were  cast  as  orna- 
ments for  houses,  furniture,  etc. 

The  Babylonian  pottery  was  excellent, 
and  the  bricks  were  superior  to  the  Assyr- 
ian. The  earthenware  is  of  fine  terra-cotta, 
usually  of  a  light  red  color,  and  slightly 
baked,  but  sometimes  of  a  yellow  hue, 
tinged  with  green;  and  consists  of  cups, 
jars,  vases  and  other  vessels,  which  appear 
to  have  been  made  upon  the  wheel.  The 
Babylonians  had  small  glass  bottles,  several 
of  which  were  found  \>y  Mr.  Laj'ard  in  the 
Babil  mound.  Broken  glass  is  found  gener- 
ally in  the  rubbish  of  the  mounds. 

The  textile  fabrics  of  the  Babjdonians 
were  the  most  celebrated  of  all  their  pro- 
du(5lions.  Their  carpets  had  acquired  a 
wide  fame  and  were  largely  exported  to 
foreign  lands.  They  were  dyed  in  various 
colors,  and  represented  griffins  and  other 
monsters.  They  ranked  above  all  others  in 
the  ancient  world,  as  tho,se  of  the  Turks  and 
Persians  do  in  the  modern.  The  Babylonian 
muslins  were  almost  as  celebrated  as  the 
carpets,  and  were  fonned  of  the  finest  cotton 
and  dyed  with  the  most  brilliant  colors. 
The  Orientals  regarded  them  as  the  best 
material  for  dress,  and  the  Persian  monarchs 
preferred  them  to  their  own  wear.  Borsippa 
was  the  chief  .seat  of  the  Babylonian  linen 
manufacture.  Long  linen  robes  were  gen- 
erally woni  by  this  people. 

In  astronomy  the  Babylonians  far  excelled 
all  other  ancient  nations,  as  their  Chalda^an 
ancestors  were  the  great  pioneers  in  this  sub- 
lime science.  The  first  Greeks  who  made  any 
advance  in  this  science  acknowledged  them- 
selves the  disciples  of  Babylonian  teachers. 
Hipparchus,  the  first  great  Greek  astrono- 
mer, mentioned  the  Babylonians  as  astro- 
nomical observers  from  a  dimly-remote  anti- 
quity. Aristotle  confessed  that  the  Greeks 
were  vastly  indebted  for  astronomical  infor- 
mation to  the  Babylonians  and  Egyptians. 
Ptolemy  made  much  u.se  of  the  Babylonian 
observations  of  eclipses.  vSir  Cornwall  Lewis 
says  that  "the  Greeks  were  in  the  habit  of 


Cin/JZATION. 


293 


attributing  the  invention  and  original  culti- 
vation of  astronomy  either  to  the  Babj'lon- 
ians  or  to  the  Egyptians,  and  represented 
the  earliest  scientific  Greek  astronomers  as 
ha\  ing  derived  their  knowledge  from  Baby- 
lonian or  from  Egyptian  priests." 

We  have  alluded  to  tlie  progress  of  the 
early  Chaldseans  in  astronomy.  On  the 
broad,  flat  plains  of  Chakkea  the  clear  sky, 
the  dry  atmosphere,  and  the  level  horizon, 
afforded  facilities  for  ob.servation  and  natur- 
rally  first  turned  man's  attention  to  the 
celestial  hemisphere.  At  a  very  early  date 
the  fixed  stars  were  distinguished  from  five 
larger  linninaries  which  the  Greeks  called 
"planets,"  which  are  the  only  movable 
stars  that  can  be  seen  without  the  aid  of  a 
telescope  of  high  magnifying  power.  They 
also  soon  discovered  that  the  moon  was  a 
wandering  luminary,  and  observed  that  the 
sun  rose  and  set  in  the  vicinity  of  diflferent 
constellations  in  different  parts  of  the  3'ear. 

They  arranged  the  stars  in  groups,  or 
"constellations,"  to  mark  out  the  courses  of 
the  sun  and  moon  among  the  stars.  The 
names  of  these  constellations  were  derived 
from  some  real  or  fancied  resemblance  of  the 
groups  to  objedls  with  which  the  early 
observers  were  familiar.  This  department 
of  astronomy  is  called  uranography.  Though 
these  groupings  of  the  fixed  stars  is  mainly 
fanciful,  its  utility  is  inestimable,  for  by  its 
means  only  are  we  enabled  to  point  out  indi- 
vidual stars  and  retain  in  the  memory  a 
knowledge  of  their  general  arrangement  and 
relative  positions. 

This  old  Chaldsean,  or  Babylonian,  uran- 
ography is  to  this  day  recognized  by  scientific 
astronomers,  and  is  represented  on  our  globes 
and  maps.  The  zodiacal  constellations,  es- 
pecially those  through  which  the  sun's 
•course  lies,  originated,  as  we  have  said, 
with  the  Chaldasans,  and  many  of  them  are 
represented  on  Babylonian  monuments  of  a 
stellar  charadler.  A  Babylonian  conical 
black  stone  now  in  the  Briti.sh  Mu.seum,  and 
Ijelonging  to  the  twelfth  century  l^efore 
Christ,  is  an  aiTangement  of  constellations 
according  to  the  forms  assigned  them  in  Ba- 
bylonian uranography.     On   this  stone  are 


recognized  the  Ram,  the  Bull,  the  Scorpion, 
the  Serpent,  the  Dog,  the  Arrow,  the  Eagle 
or  Vulture.  There  are  similar  forms  on 
other  monuments  of  a  like  characfler. 

The  Babylonians  called  the  zodiacal  con- 
stellations the  "  Hou.ses  of  the  Sun,  "  and  di.s- 
tinguished  them  from  another  set  of  a.ster- 
isms,  which  they  designated  the  "Houses 
of  the  Moon."  Thej'  obser\'ed  and  calcu- 
lated eclipses,  but  their  knowledge  was  em- 
pirical. We  have  noted  of  the  early  Chal- 
dseans that  they  discovered  the  period  of 
two  hundred  and  twenty  three  lunations,  or 
eighteen  years  and  ten  days,  after  which 
eclipses,  particularly  those  of  the  moon, 
recur  again  in  the  same  order.  Their 
knowledge  of  this  cycle  enabled  them  to 
foretell  lunar  eclipses  accurately  for  ages, 
and  solar  eclipses  with  little  inaccuracy  for 
the  next  few  cycles. 

The  Babylonians  carefully  noted  and  re- 
corded eclipses.  Ptolemy  had  access  to  a 
continuous  series  of  such  observations  dating 
back  from  his  own  time  to  B.  C.  747.  From 
Babylonian  sources  Hipparchus  described 
eclipses  of  the  moon  for  the  years  B.  C.  721, 
720,  621  and  523,  the  first  of  which  was 
total  at  Babylon,  the  others  only  partial. 
These  obser\'ations  are  seen  to  answer 
every  purpose  of  modern  science.  We  have 
knowledge  of  Babylonian  observations  as 
far  back  as  Nabonassar,  B.  C.  747,  as  that 
king,  according  to  the  account  by  Berosus, 
destroyed  the  previously-existing  observa- 
tions, so  that  exacft  chronology  might  beg^n 
with  his  own  reign. 

The  Bab>'lonians  arranged  a  catalogue  of 
the  fixed  stars,  which  were  employed  by  the 
Greeks  in  compiling  their  stellar  tables. 
They  recorded  their  obser\-ations  upon  oc- 
cultations  of  the  planets  by  the  sun  and  the 
moon.  They  invented  two  kinds  of  sun- 
dials, "Cao.  gnomon  and  \\\q  polos,  by  means  of 
which  they  could  measure  time  during  the 
day,  and  accurately  establish  the  exac^ 
length  of  the  solar  day.  They  discovered 
the  length  of  the  synodic  revolution  of  the 
moon  within  a  small  fracflion.  The  exa(5l 
length  of  the  Chaldaean  year  was  three  hun- 
dred  and   sixty-five    days,   six   hours   and 


294 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  1  '.—BAB  YL  ONI  A. 


eleven  minutes;  which  is  only  two  seconds 
longer  than  the  true  sidereal  year.  Thej' 
obser\'ed  comets,  and  believed  them  to  be 
permanent  bodies,  revolving  in  orbits  like 
those  of  the  planets.  They  believed  eclipses 
of  the  sun  to  be  due  to  the  interposition  of 
the  moon  between  the  sun  and  the  earth. 
They  knew  very  nearly  the  relative  dis- 
tances of  the  sun,  the  moon  and  the  planets 
from  the  earth.  Naturally  adopting  a  geo- 
centric system,  they  decided  that  the  moon 
was  nearest  to  the  earth;  that  Mercury  was 
beyond  the  moon,  \'enus  beyond  Mercury, 
Mars  bej'oud  Venus,  Jupiter  beyond  Mars, 
and  Saturn  beyond  Jupiter.  From  the  dif- 
ference in  the  periodic  times  of  these  lumin- 
aries the  Babylonians  inferred  a  correspond- 
ing difference  in  the  size  of  the  orbits,  and 
therefore  their  relative  distances  from  the 
common  center. 

The  astronomical  achievements  of  the 
Babylonians  thus  far  described  rest  upon  the 
authority  of  the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman 
writers.  There  are  many  Chaldrean  and 
Babylonian  astronomical  tablets  in  the  Brit- 
ish Museum,  which  are  not  yet  thoroughly 
understood.  It  is  said  that  there  is  clear 
evidence  that  the  Babj'lonians  ob.ser\'ed  the 
four  satellites  of  Jupiter,  and  good  reason  for 
believing  that  thej^  had  a  knowledge  of  the 
seven  satellites  of  Saturn.  They  .so  well 
understood  the  general  laws  of  the  mo\'e- 
ments  of  the  celestial  bodies  that  they  could 
foretell  the  positions  of  the  different  planets 
throughout  the  year. 

They  must  have  employed  some  instru- 
ments to  acquire  the  knowledge  which  they 
possessed.  We  have  observed  that  they  in- 
vented sun-dials  to  measure  time  during  the 
day.  The  clepsj'dra,  or  water-clock,  com- 
monly used  by  the  Greeks  as  early  as  the 
fifth  century  before  Christ,  is  believed  to 
have  been  a  Babylonian  invention.  The 
astrolobe,  an  instrument  used  to  measure  the 
altitude  of  the  stars  above  the  horizon,  and 
which  was  known  to  Ptolemy,  is  likewise 
believed  to  have  been  invented  by  this  peo- 
ple. If,  as  believed,  the  satellites  of  Saturn 
are  mentioned  upon  the  taljlets,  the  Baby- 
lonians must  have  had  optical  instruments 


like  the  tele.scope;  as  it  is  impossible,  even 
in  the  clear  and  vaporless  sky  of  Chaldgea, 
to  see  the  moons  of  that  remote  planet  with- 
out the  aid  of  lenses.  As  we  have  said,  a 
lens  has  been  discovered  among  the  Assyrian 
ruins.  A  people  with  sufficient  ingenuity 
to  discover  the  magnifj-ing-glass  would  nat- 
urally be  able  to  invent  its  opposite.  The 
existence  of  two  opposite  kinds  of  lenses 
would  furnish  the  elements  of  a  telescope. 

Though  a  class  of  pure  astronomers  ex- 
isted among  the  Babylonians,  most  of  those 
engaged  in  the  study  of  astronomy  followed 
it  because  thej'  believed  that  the  heavenly 
bodies  had  some  mysterious  influence  upon 
the  seasons,  and  also  upon  the  lives  and 
fortunes  of  individuals,  and  that  this  influ- 
ence could  be  discovered  and  foretold  by 
long  and  careful  observation.  The  ancient 
Jewish  and  Greek  writers  bear  witness  to 
this  facft,  and  their  testimony  is  confirmed 
by  existing  astronomical  remains.  Most  of 
the  Babylonian  tablets  are  of  an  astrological 
chara(5ter,  recording  the  supposed  influence 
of  the  celestial  bodies,  singly,  in  conjunc- 
tion, or  in  opposition,  upon  all  earthly 
affairs,  from  the  fate  of  kingdoms  and  em- 
pires to  the  washing  of  hands  or  the  paring 
of  nails.  Says  Rawlinson :  ' '  The  modem 
prophetical  almanac  is  the  legitimate  de- 
scendant and  the  sufficient  representative  of 
the  ancient  Chaldee  Ephemeris,  which  was 
just  as  .sill}^  just  as  pretentious,  and  just  as 
worthless. ' ' 

Chaldee  astrology  was  chiefly  genethli- 
alogical,  inquiring  under  what  a.specft  of  the 
heavens  individuals  were  born  or  conceived, 
and  pretending  to  ascertain  the  entire  life  and 
fortunes  of  men  from  the  position  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  at  one  or  the  other  of  these 
moments.  Diodorus  says  that  it  was  be- 
lieved that  a  particular  star  or  constellation 
watched  over  the  birth  of  each  individual, 
and  thereafter  exercised  a  special  malign  or 
benignant  influence  over  his  life.  His  for- 
tunes depended  on  the  whole  aspe(5l  of  the 
heavens,  as  well  as  tipon  this  one  star. 
Casting  the  horoscope  was  reproducing  this 
aspecft,  and  then  reading  bj'  its  means  the 
destiny  of  the  individual. 


CIVILIZATION. 


295 


The  Chaldseaus  also  pretended  to  predidl 
changes  of  the  weather,  high  winds  and 
storms,  great  heats,  the  appearance  of  com- 
ets, eclipses,  earthquakes,  etc.,  from  the 
stars.  They  published  lists  of  lucky  and 
unlucky  days,  and  tables  indicating  what 
aspe<5l  of  the  heavens  portended  good  or 
evil  to  particular  nations.  Sir  Henrj^  Raw- 
linson  has  discovered  both  lists  among  the 
tablets.  They  considered  their  art  as  con- 
fined to  the  countries  occupied  by  them- 
selves and  their  kinsmen;  they  being  able 
to  foretell  storm,  tempest,  good  or  poor  crops, 
war,  famine,  etc.,  for  Syria,  Babylonia  and 
Susiana;  but  unable  to  prophesy  concerning 
Media,  Persia,  Armenia  or  other  countries. 
Like  our  almanacs,  their  calendars  predicfled 
the  weather  for  stated  days. 

The  Chaldsans  also  possessed  consid- 
erable mathematical  learning,  and  their 
methods  seem  to  have  been  geometrical. 
The  Greek  mathematicians  are  said  to  have 
quoted  the  works  of  such  Chaldaeans  a.-j 
Ciden,  Naburianus  and  Sudinus. 

Herodotus,  Diodorus,  Strabo  and  Nicolas 
of  Damascus  have  given  accounts  of  the 
Babylonian  manners  and  customs.  He- 
rodotus tells  us  that  this  people  wore  a  long 
linen  gown  extending  down  to  the  feet,  a 
woolen  gown  or  tunic  over  this,  a  short 
cloak  or  cape  of  a  white  color,  and  shoes 
like  those  of  the  Boeotians.  Their  hair  grew 
long,  but  was  confined  to  the  head  by  a 
head-band  or  a  turban,  and  they  always 
carried  a  walking-stick  with  some  kind  of  a 
carving  on  the  handle.  This  description 
doubtless  applies  to  the  higher  and  wealthier 
classes.  The  prophet  Ezekiel  thus  alludes 
to  these  people:  "Girded  with  girdles  upon 
their  loins,  exceeding  in  dyed  attire  upon 
their  heads,  all  of  them  princes  to  look  to, 
after  the  manner  of  the  Babylonians  of 
Chaldasa,  the  land  of  their  nativity." 

The  cylinders  represent  the  poor  wor- 
shiper bringing  an  offering  to  a  god  as 
dressed  in  a  tunic  reaching  from  the  shoul- 
der to  the  knee,  ornamented  with  a  diagonal 
fringe  and  confined  to  the  waist  by  a  belt. 
Rich  worshipers  usually  present  a  goat,  and 
are  attired  in  a  tunic,  with  a  long  robe  with- 


out .sleeves  over  it,  and  wear  a  fillet,  or  head- 
band. Figures  of  hunters  attacking  a  lion, 
a  man  accompanying  a  dog,  and  a  warrior 
condu(5ling  six  captives,  are  represented  on 
cj-linders  as  dres.sed  in  short  tunics.  These 
tunics  had  no  sleeves,  and  were  seldom  pat- 
terned. Rich  worshipers  are  .sometimes  rej)- 
resented  dressed  in  coats  without  sleeves, 
fringed  down  both  sides,  and  extending  only 
a  little  below  the  knees.  They  have  also  a 
fillet  around  the  head. 

The  Babylonians  are,  with  few  excep- 
tions, represented  with  bare  feet,  though 
the  .soldiers  wore  low  boots,  and  the  king 
had  a  kind  of  check-work  patterned  shoe. 
Herodotus,  however,  mentions  them  in  his 
time  as  wearing  a  "peculiar  .shoe."  He- 
rodotus states  that  every  Babylonian  man 
carried  a  seal  and  a  walking-stick. 

The  king  wore  a  long  gown,  reaching  to 
the  feet,  and  elaborately  patterned  and 
fringed.  Over  this  he  had  a  close-fitting 
sleeved  vest,  reaching  to  the  knees,  and  end- 
ing in  a  set  of  heavy  tassels.  The  girdle 
was  worn  outside  the  outer  vest,  and  in  war 
the  king  carried  besides  two  cross-belts. 
Both  the  upper  and  under  vests  were  ele- 
gantly embroidered.  From  the  girdle  de- 
pended in  front  a  heavy  tassel  fastened  by 
a  cord. 

The  Babylonian  monarch  w^ore  a  remark- 
able tiara,  it  being  exceedingl}'  high,  almost 
cylindrical,  slightly  tending  to  swell  out 
toward  the  crown,  which  was  adorned  with 
a  row  of  feathers  around  its  whole  circum- 
ference. The  space  below  was  patterned  with 
rosettes,  sacred  trees  and  mj^thological  fig- 
ures. A  projecftion  of  feathers  rose  from 
the  middle  of  the  crown,  rounded  at  the 
top.  This  head-dress  was  worn  low  on  the 
brow,  and  covered  most  of  the  back  part  of 
the  head. 

The  Babylonian  king  also  wore  bracelets. 
Nicolas  of  Damascus  .says  that  a  Babylonian 
go\'emor  wore  necklaces  and  ear-rings. 
The  jjriests  wore  a  long  robe  or  gown  with 
flounces  and  stripes,  over  which  they  wore 
an  open  jacket.  A  long  riband  or  scarf 
hung  down  their  backs.  They  wore  an 
elaborate  crown    or   mitre  on  their  heads, 


296 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— BABYLONIA. 


which  was  likewise  assigned  to  many  of  the 
gods.  Sometimes  a  horned  cap  was  worn 
instead  of  the  mitre.  The  priests  wore  their 
heads  uncovered  in  all  sacrificial  and  cere- 
monial adls. 

The  Babylonian  soldiers  were  armed  with 
bows  and  arrows,  spears,  daggers,  maces 
or  clubs,  and  battle-axes,  for  weapons  of 
offense;  while  their  defensive  armor  con- 
sisted of  bronze  helmets,  linen  breast-plates 
and  shields.  The  prophet  Ezekiel  mentions 
the  shields  and  helmets  of  the  Babylonians, 
and  also  their  battle-axes;  while  Jeremiah 
mentions  their  spears  and  swords,  and  their 
breast-plates.  The  favorite  weapon  of  the 
Babylonians  was  the  bow,  as  attested  by  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  native  monuments. 
The  figure  of  a  king  is  represented  as  car- 
rying a  bow;  while  the  soldier  conducfling 
captives  has  a  bow,  an  arrow  and  a  quiver. 
An  old  Chaldsean  monument  represents  a 
king  with  a  bow  and  arrow,  a  club  and  a 
dagger.  There  is  a  cylinder  representing  a 
lion  disturbed  in  the  a(5l  of  feasting  off  an 
ox  by  two  rustics,  one  of  whom  attacks  him 
in  front  with  a  spear,  while  the  other,  seizing 
his  tail,  assails  him  from  behind  with  an  ax. 

The  Babylonian  armies  consisted  of  char- 
iots, cavalry  and  infantry.  The  cylinders 
.sometimes  represent  a  curious  four-wheeled 
car,  drawn  by  four  lior.ses,  with  a  raised 
platform  in  front  and  a  seat  behind  for  the 
driver.  The  Jewish  prophet  Habakkuk,  in 
speaking  of  the  Babylonian  cavalrj',  said: 
"They  are  terrible  and  dreadful."  He  also 
said:.  "Their  horses  also  are  swifter  than 
the  leopards,  and  are  more  fierce  than  the 
evening  wolves;  and  their  horsemen  shall 
spread  them.selves,  and  their  horsemen  shall 
come  from  far;  they  shall  fly  as  the  eagle 
that  hasteth  to  eat."  Ezekiel,  alluding  to 
"the  Babylonians  and  all  of  the  Chaldas- 
ans,"  referred  to  the  "  desirable  3-oung  men, 
captains  and  rulers,  great  lords  and  re- 
nowned; all  of  them  riding  upon  horses." 
Jeremiah  .spoke  of  the  Babylonian  chariots 
and  cavalry  thus:  "Behold,  he  shall  come 
up  as  clouds,  and  his  chariots  shall  be  as  a 
whirlwind;  his  horses  are  swifter  than  eagles. 
Woe  unto  us  !  for  we  are  spoiled." 


In  the  army  of  Xerxes  the  Babylonians 
were  infantry,  but  Darius,  in  the  Behistun 
Inscription,  alludes  to  Babylonian  horsemen; 
and  the  Babylonian  armies  which  overran 
Syria,  Palestine  and  Egypt  consisted  chiefly 
of  cavalry.  The  Babylonian  armies,  like 
the  Persian,  consisted  of  immense  hosts, 
poorly  disciplined,  comprising,  besidesnative 
Babylonian  troops,  contingents  from  the 
subjedl  nations,  such  as  Susianians,  Shu- 
hites,  Assyrians  and  others.  They  marched 
with  great  noise  and  tumult,  scattering  over 
the  country  invaded,  plundering  and  de- 
stroying on  every  side.  They  assailed  the 
weaker  towns  with  battering-rams,  and 
raised  mounds  before  the  stronger  to  the  top 
of  the  walls,  which  they  then  easily  scaled 
or  broke  down.  They  were  noted  for  their 
determined  persistence  and  unyielding  per- 
.severance  in  sieges,  only  taking  Jerusalem 
in  the  third  year,  and  Tyre  in  the  fourteenth. 
Omens  often  decided  which  country  was  to 
be  next  attacked. 

Diodorus  described  the  Babylonian  priests 
as  a  caste  devoted  to  the  service  of  their 
gods  and  to  the  study  of  philosophy.  He 
says  that  they  were  highly  esteemed  by  the 
people.  They  guarded  the  temples  and 
served  at  the  altars  of  the  gods,  to  interpret 
dreams  and  prodigies,  to  understand  omens, 
to  read  the  warnings  of  the  stars,  and  to  in- 
form men  how  to  escape  the  perils  with 
which  they  were  thus  menaced,  by  purifi- 
cations, incantations  and  sacrifices.  No 
one  questioned  their  traditional  knowledge 
transmitted  from  father  to  son.  The  people 
considered  them  as  in  possession  of  a  wis- 
dom of  the  highest  importance  to  the  human 
race. 

The  Book  of  Daniel  describes  a  class  of 
"wise  men"  at  Babylon,  chief  of  which  were 
the  Chaldseans,  who  are  noted  for  a  partic- 
ular "learning"  and  a  particular  "tongue," 
and  who  expounded  dreams  and  prodigies. 
They  were  in  high  favor  with  the  king,  who 
frequently  consulted  them.  These  "wise 
men"  were  of  four  classes,  according  to 
their  occupations — "Chaldaians,  magicians, 
astrologers  and  soothsayers."  Jews  were 
enrolled  among  these  "wise  men, "and  the 


CIMl.I/.ATION. 


297 


prophet  Daniel  was  made  chief  of  the  whole 
order  by  King  Nebuchadnezzar.  As  a  dis- 
tinifl  order,  these  ' '  wise  men ' '  had  consider- 
able power  in  the  state.  They  had  diredl 
communication  with  the  king,  and  were  be- 
lieved to  be  endowed  with  a  supernatural 
])ower  to  foretell  future  events,  as  well  as 
in  pos.session  of  human  learning;  and  some 
of  them  held  high  civil  offices. 

Herodotus  mentions  the  Chaldaeans  as 
"priests;"  and  Strabo  .says  that  they  were 
"philosophers,"  employed  t:hiefly  in  as- 
tronomy. Strabo  al.so  states  that  they  were 
divided  into  secfts,  differing  from  each  other 
in  their  doctrines.  The  Babylonian  priests 
were  an  order,  not  a  caste;  and,  as  in  Egypt 
and  Persia,  they  were  an  esteemed  and  im- 
portant class.  Priests  may  have  brought 
up  their  sons  to  their  own  occupation,  but 
other  persons,  even  foreigners,  were  admited 
to  the  order  and  to  its  highest  privileges. 
The  Babj'lonian  priesthood  was  a  sacerdotal 
and  learned  bod}-,  having  a  literature  writ- 
ten in  a  peculiar  language,  which  its  mem- 
bers were  obliged  to  study.  This  language 
and  literature  were  inherited  from  the  times 
of  the  earl}'  Chaldaean  Empire,  and  were 
thus  transmitted  to  Assyria  and  later  Baby- 
lonia. 

They  professed  especially  a  knowledge  of 
astronomy,  astrology  and  mythology,  and 
may  have  also  studied  history,  chronology, 
grammar,  law  and  natural  science.  They 
were  dispersed  over  the  countr}-,  but  had 
special  seats  of  learning  at  Erech,  or  Orchoe 
(now  Warka),  at  Borsippa  (the  site  of  the 
present  Birs-i-Nimrud),  and  at  other  places. 
They  were  diligent  and  ingenious  students, 
divided  into  se<5ls  with  different  docftrines, 
and  given  to  speculation.  They  particularly 
cultivated  astronomy  with  success,  and  the 
value  of  their  knowledge  in  this  science  was 
afterwards  acknowledged  b}'  the  Greeks. 

The  priests  stood  high  socially,  having 
access  to  the  king,  and  being  feared  and  re- 
spedleu  by  the  people.  They  were  made 
wealthy  by  the  offerings  of  the  faithful,  and 
their  occupation  as  interpreters  of  the  will 
of  the  gods  secured  them  influence.  The 
civil  offices  frequently  conferred  upon  them 

1— i9.-r.  H. 


added  to  their  wealth  and  to  the  esteem  in 
which  they  were  held. 

The  Babylonians  were  a  great  manufac- 
turing and  commercial  people.  Their  com- 
merce was  both  foreign  and  domestic.  Many 
were  engaged  in  manufadluring  the  textile 
fabrics  for  which  the  Babylonians  were  so 
famous,  e.specially  carpets  and  muslins. 
Many  were  engaged  as  engravers  on  hard 
stone,  with  which  the  seal  carried  by  every 
Babylonian  was  adorned.  The  trades  and 
handicrafts  commonly  pradliced  in  the  Ea.st 
also  flourished  in  Babylonia.  An  acftive  and 
constant  import  and  export  trade  was  kept 
up.  The  Jewish  prophet  Ezekiel  called  Ba- 
bylonia ' '  a  land  of  traffic, ' '  and  Babylon  ' '  a 
city  of  merchants."  Isaiah  said  that  "the 
cry  of  the  Chaldseans  ' '  was  ' '  in  their  ships. ' ' 
The  monuments  show  that  the  primitive 
Chaldceans  navigated  the  Persian  Gulf,  and 
yEschylus  calls  the  Babylonians  in  the  army 
of  Xerxes  "navigators  of  ships." 

The  Babylonians  imported  frankincense 
from  Arabia;  pearls,  cotton,  and  wood  for 
walking-sticks  from  the  Persian  Gulf;  dogs 
and  gems  from  India.  Strabo  says  that  they 
had  a  colony  called  Gerra,  on  the  Arabian 
coast  of  the  Persian  Gulf  and  this  colony 
was  a  great  emporium  through  which  the 
Babylonian  trade  to  the  north  and  the  south 
was  conducted.  The  products  of  Western 
Asia  were  carried  down  into  Babylonia  by 
the  courses  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates. 
Wine,  gems,  emery  and  building  stone  were 
imported  from  Armenia  and  Upper  Mesopo- 
tamia; tin  and  copper  from  Phoenicia ;  and  fine 
wool,  lapis-laziili,  silk,  gold  and  ivory  from 
Media  and  the  distant  East.  But  these  ar- 
ticles were  brought  to  Babylon  mainly  by 
foreign  merchants.  The  Armenians  and 
Phoenicians,  and  perhaps  also  the  Greeks, 
used  the  route  of  the  Euphrates  for  the 
transportation  of  goods.  The  Assyrians, 
the  Medes  and  the  Paretaceni  floated  their 
goods  down  the  Tigris  and  its  tributaries. 

A  great  portion  of  the  Babylonian  people 
were  engaged  in  agriculture.  Babylonia 
was  chiefly  a  grain-producing  country,  the 
wonderful  fertility  of  whose  soil  has  been 
noted  in  our  account  of  ancient  Chaldaca. 


298 


ANCIENT   HISTOR Y.—DAD YLONIA. 


The  deep  and  rich  aUuvium  was  cultivated 
with  the  greatest  care.  As  before  mentioned 
wheat,  barley,  millet  and  sesame  flourished 
in  luxuriant  abundance.  Bj-  means  of  ca- 
nals the  countrj'  was  irrigated.  Groves  of 
date-palm  furnished  the  chief  article  of  food. 
Little  beyond  a  proper  water  supply  was 
needed  for  the  cultivation  of  the  date.  The 
female  palm-tree  can  only  produce  fruit  by 
the  pollen  of  the  male  palm  coming  in  contad; 
with  its  blossoms.  Herodotus  states  that 
the  Babylonians  tied  the  branches  of  the 
male  to  those  of  the  female  palm. 

Artificial  means  increased  the  yield  of  the 
date-palm  in  Babylonia.  The  seeds  and  cut- 
tings were  planted  in  a  sandy  soil,  to  which 
salt  was  applied  if  necessary.  Abundant 
watering  was  required,  and  transplantation 
was  resorted  to  at  the  close  of  the  first  and 
second  year.  The  ground  was  broken  with 
a  plow  drawn  by  two  oxen. 

Dates  were  the  chief  food  of  the  Baby- 
lonians, and  on  this  fruit  and  goat's  milk 
the  poorer  class  mainly  subsisted.  Palm- 
wine  was  an  occasional  beverage.  In  the 
marshy  regions  of  the  South  fish  was  the 
principal  food  of  .some  tribes  of  Chaldaeans. 
The  wealthy  indulged  in  luxuries,  such  as 
wheat  bread,  meats,  luscious  fruits,  fish, 
game  and  imported  wine.  The  rich  also 
drank  to  excess.  They  had  magnificent 
banquets,  which  usually  ended  in  drunken- 
ness. Bands  of  musicians  entertained  the 
guests.  The  display  of  gold  and  silver 
plate,  the  magnificent  dresses  of  the  guests, 
the  beautiful  carpets  and  hangings,  the 
many  attendants,  all  contributed  to  the 
splendor  of  the  scene. 

The  Babylonians  and  Susianians  were 
both  fond  of  music.  Ctesias  and  Daniel 
testify  to  the  musical  taste  of  the  Babylon- 
ians. Ctesias  states  that  Annarus.  or  Nan- 
narus,  a  Babylonian  noble,  enlivened  a  ban- 
quet with  the  music  of  a  band  of  one  hun- 


dred and  fifty  women,  some  singing  and 
others  playing  on  the  pipe,  the  harp  and  the 
psalter},'.  The  prophet  Daniel  assigns  the 
same  instruments  to  the  Babylonians,  along 
with  the  horn,  the  sambuca  and  the  sym- 
//w«?^,  or  "symphony."  The  Babylonians 
also  used  music  in  their  religious  ceremonies. 
Daniel  mentions  their  musical  instruments 
in  connedlion  with  Nebuchadnezzar's  dedi- 
cation of  a  gigantic  idol  of  gold,  when  the 
worshipers  were  obliged  to  prostrate  them- 
selves before  the  idol  upon  hearing  the 
music  begin. 

Women  were  not  kept  in  the  same  seclu- 
sion in  Babylonia  as  in  other  Oriental  coun- 
tries, as  is  apparent  from  the  two  curious 
customs  mentioned  by  Herodotus — the  sale 
of  the  marriageable  maidens  at  public 
audlion  to  the  highest  bidder,  and  the  relig- 
ious prostitution  enjoined  in  the  worship  of 
Beltis.  On  the  Babylonian  cylinders  are 
frequently  found  images  of  a  goddess  suck- 
ling a  child,  and  also  many  representations 
of  women  engaged  in  diSerent  employments. 
Sometimes  they  are  represented  in  a  pro- 
cession visiting  the  shrine  of  a  goddess,  and 
sometimes  thej'  are  seen  among  birds  and 
flowers  in  a  garden,  plucking  the  fruit  from 
dwarf  palms  and  handing  it  to  one  another. 
They  are  dressed  in  a  long  but  scanty  robe 
extending  to  the  feet,  and  wear  a  fillet,  or 
band,  round  the  head,  confining  the  hair, 
which  is  turned  back  behind  the  head,  and 
tied  by  a  riband,  or  held  up  by  the  fillet. 
The  modeled  clay  image  represents  bracelets 
and  ear-rings  as  woni  by  the  women.  A 
single  representation  of  a  priestess  exhibits 
that  class  as  wearing  petticoats  only,  thus 
exposing  the  entire  bod)'  above  the  waist. 

A  few  Babj-lonian  cylinders  have  been 
found  representing  saws  and  hatchets,  stools, 
chairs,  tables,  and  stands  for  water-jars. 
The  Babylonian  furniture  was  made  from 
the  wood  of  the  palm-tree. 


RELIGION. 


299 


SECTION    IV.— BABYLONIAN    RELIGION. 


dHK  later  Babylonian  religion 
lieiiii;  almost  identical  with 
the  old  Chaldsean,  it  will  not 
be  necessarj'  to  go  into  detail 
upon  the  subjedl  in  this  con- 
necftion.  The  early  ChaldEeans,  and  their 
successors  in  the  same  country,  the  later 
Babylonians,  worshiped  the  same  gods  in 
the  same  temples  and  with  the  same  rites, 
and  had  the  same  cosmogon}',  the  same  re- 
ligious sj-mbols,  and  the  same  priestly  cos- 
tume. If  Urukh  or  Chedorlaomer  could 
have  risen  from  their  graves,  and  again 
visited  the  shrines  in  which  thej'  had  offered 
sacrifices  fourteen  centuries  before,  the}' 
would  have  seen  little  difference  between 
the  ceremonies  of  their  own  times  and  those 
of  the  ages  of  Nabopolassar  and  Nebuchad- 
nezzar. In  the  later  times  the  temples  and 
the  idols  were  more  magnificent,  music  was 
more  extensively  emploj'ed  in  the  ceremo- 
nial, and  corruption  concerning  priestlj'  im- 
postures and  popular  religious  customs  made 
some  advance;  but  in  other  respedls  the  re- 
ligion of  Nabonadius  and  Belshazzar  was 
like  that  of  Urukh  and  Ilgi,  the  religion  of 
both  periods  being  the  same  in  the  objedts 
and  the  mode  of  worship,  in  the  theological 
ideas  entertained  and  the  ceremonial  observ- 
ances and  pracflices. 

The  repair  and  restoration  of  the  ancient 
temples  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  their  re- 
dedication  to  the  same  deities,  attests  at 
once  the  identity  of  the  gods  and  goddesses 
wonshiped,  as  do  likewise  the  old  appella- 
tions of  the  gods  as  elements  in  the  names 
of  the  later  kings  and  nobles.  But  with  all 
this  general  unifonnity,  there  was  a  fludtua- 
tion  of  rank  and  place  among  the  gods 
at  various  times,  and  distindl  deities  were 
often  confounded  with  each  other.  Nebu- 
chadnezzar showed  special  devotion  to  Mero- 
dach,  bestowing  upon  him  titles  of  honor 
signifying  his  supremacy  over  all  the 
other  gods,  and  identifying  him  with  Bel, 
the     ancient     tutelary    god     of    Babylon. 


Among  the  titles  which  Nebuchadnezzar 
assigned  to  Merodach  were  the  following; 
"The  great  lord,"  "the  first-born  of  the 
gods,"  "the  most  ancient,"  " the  supporter 
of  sovereignty,"  "the  king  of  the  heavens 
and  the  earth."  Nabonadius,  however,  re- 
stored Bel  to  his  former  place  among  the 
gods,  as  distindl  from  and  above  Merodach, 
and  showed  particular  devotion  to  the  for- 
mer. This  is  proven  bj^  the  fa(5l  that  in  his 
da3'  the  great  temple  at  Babj-lon  was  known 
as  the  temple  of  Bel,  and  by  the  additional 
circumstance  that  Nabonadius  named  his 
eldest  son  Belshazzar,  meaning  ' '  Bel  pro- 
tects my  sou. ' ' 

In  the  same  way  the  goddesses  Beltis  and 
Ishtar,  or  Nana,  are  often  confounded, 
though  the  same  was  the  case  in  this  in- 
stance in  the  old  Chaldaean  monarch3\  The 
basis  of  this  confusion  of  deities  was  the 
esoteric  docflrine  known  by  the  priests  and 
taught  b^'  them  to  the  kings,  showing  the 
acftual  identity  of  the  several  gods  and  god- 
desses, whom  the  more  intelligent  and  better 
informed  may  have  considered  various 
phases  of  the  Divine  Nature  and  not  as  sep- 
arate and  distindl  deities.  The  ancient 
polythei.sms  apparently  had  this  origin 
among  all  nations,  the  various  names  and 
titles  of  the  Supreme  Being  designating  His 
different  attributes  or  His  different  spheres 
of  adlion  gradually  coming  to  be  misappre- 
hended by  the  ignorant  masses,  who  re- 
garded this  seeming  difference  as  appella- 
tions of  a  number  of  deities. 

Bel,  Merodach  and  Nebo  were  the  deities 
chiefly  worshiped  by  the  later  Bab)-lonians, 
as  attested  by  the  native  monuments,  and 
confirmed  by  the  Jewish  writers.  Nebo,  the 
special  deity  of  Bor.sippa,  was  considered 
a  kind  of  powerful  patron-.saint,  under  whose 
protedlion  it  was  regarded  important  to  place 
individuals.  Nebo's  name  is  the  mo.st  com- 
mon divine  element  in  the  names  of  the  kings 
and  courtiers  of  the  later  Babylonian  mon- 
;  archy.     Three  of  the  seven  monarchs  of  the 


300 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— BABYLONIA. 


kingdom  had  names  composed  with  Nebo's 
— Nabopolassar,  Nebuchadnezzar  and  Na- 
bonadius.  Among  courtiers  we  find  such 
names  as  Nebu-zar-adaii,  Samgar-Nebo  and 
Nebu-shazbau.  It  is  also  believed  that 
Nebuchadnezzar's  Master  of  the  Eunuchs 
named  one  of  the  young  Jewish  princes 
whom  he  was  educating  Abed-Nebo,  "the 
servant  of  Nebo" — a  name  which  the  Jews 
afterwards  corrupted  into  Abed-nego. 

Nergal  was  also  highly  reverenced  by  the 
Babylonians.  He  was  worshiped  at  Cutha  as 
the  tutelary  divinity  of  the  city,  and  was 
also  greatly  esteemed  by  the  nation  in  gen- 
eral. His  name  is  often  found  on  cylinder 
.seals;  and  is  sometimes  an  element  in  the 
names  of  men,  as  in  "  Nergal-shar-ezer,  the 
Rag-Mag,"  and  in  Neriglissar,  the  king. 

The  Babylonian  religion  had  a  strong 
local  charadler.  Bel  and  Merodach  were  the 
special  gods  of  Babylon;  Nebo  of  Borsippa; 
Nergal  of  Cutha;  the  Moon-god  of  Ur,  or 
Hur;  Beltis  of  Niffer;  Hea,  or  Hoa,  of  Hit; 
Ana  of  Erech,  or  Huruk;  the  Sun-god  of 
Sippara,  etc.  These  deities  were  particu- 
larly honored  at  their  respedlive  places, 
though  all  were  recognized  in  a  general  way 
throughout  the  land.  Each  god  was  speci- 
ally worshiped  in  his  own  city,  where  was 
located  his  most  magnificent  shrine.  A  god 
was  only  respecfted  to  any  account  out  of  his 
own  city  by  such  as  considered  him  their 
special  personal  protedtor. 

The  Babylonians  worshiped  their  deities 
direcftly  through  their  images,  thus  giving 
their  religion  the  same  idolatrous  charadter 
bestowed  upon  it  by  the  Assyrians.  Each 
shrine  had  one  idol  at  least,  and  this  idol 
was  most  impiously  reverenced  by  the  igno- 
rant, who  identified  it  in  some  way  with  the 
god  whom  it  represented.  Some  of  them 
appear  to  have  believed  that  the  idol  ate  and 
drank  the  offerings;  while  others  regarded  the 
idol  as  a  mere  symbol  of  the  god,  who  was 
supposed  to  paj'  an  occasional  visit  to  the 
shrine  where  he  was  worshiped.  Tho.se  who 
held  the  last  docflrine  nevertheless  enter- 
tained gross  anthropomorphic  views,  as  they 
regarded  the  god  as  coming  from  heaven  to 
earth  to  pass  the  night  with  the  chief  priest- 


ess in  the  inner  .shrine  of  the  temple  of  Bel, 
which  was  furnished  by  the  priests  with  a 
magnificent  couch  and  a  golden  table. 

Some  of  the  idols  were  of  wood,  others  of 
stone,  and  others  again  of  metal,  either 
solid  or  plated.  The  metals  used  were  gold, 
silver,  brass  or  bronze,  and  iron.  Sometimes 
the  metal  was  laid  over  a  cla}-  model.  In 
some  instances  images  of  one  metal  were 
overlaid  with  plates  of  another,  as  in  the 
case  of  one  of  the  great  images  of  Bel,  origi- 
nally of  silver,  but  coated  with  gold  by  Nebu- 
chadnezzar. 

The  Bab\-lonian  worship  was  conducfted 
with  great  pomp  and  magnificence.  A  body 
of  priests  in  each  temple  condu6ted  the  cer- 
emonies and  held  custody  of  the  treasures. 
The  priests  were  married,  and  lived  with 
their  families  in  the  temple  itself  or  in  its 
immediate  vicinity.  They  were  supported 
by  lands  belonging  to  the  temple  or  by  the 
offerings  of  the  faithful.  These  offerings 
were  usualh'  animals,  mostly  oxen  and 
goats,  which  are  sacrificial  animals  repre- 
sented on  the  cylinders.  The  priest  always 
inter\'ened  between  the  worshiper  and  the 
deities,  introducing  him  to  them  and  mak- 
ing intercession  in  his  behalf  with  upraised 
hands. 

In  the  temple  of  Bel  at  Babylon,  and  per- 
haps in  most  of  the  temples  throughout 
Bab)'lonia,  a  great  festival  was  celebrated 
once  a  year.  Many  vidtims  were  sacrificed 
on  such  occasions,  and  on  the  great  altar  in 
the  precinct  of  Bel  at  Babylon  it  was  the  cus- 
tom to  burn  a  thousand  talents'  weight  of 
frankincense.  There  were  processions  ac- 
companied b}'  music  and  dancing.  The 
priests  were  magnificently  costumed.  The 
people  were  in  holiday  attire.  Banquets 
were  held,  and  the  city  was  given  up  to 
merry-making.  The  king  entertained  his 
lords  in  his  palace.  There  was  dancing  and 
revelry'  in  private  dwellings.  Wine  was 
drunk  freely,  passion  was  aroused,  and  the 
day  often  ended  in  wild  orgies,  in  which  the 
gro.ssest  sensual  appetites  were  allowed  free 
indulgence  under  the  san<5lion  of  religion. 

In  the  temples  of  one  deity  such  excesses 
occurred  daily.     Every  Babylonian  woman 


RELIGION. 


was  obliged  once  in  her  lifetime  to  visit  a 
shrine  of  Ikltis,  and  stay  there  until  some 
stranger  cast  money  into  her  lap  and  took 
her  along  with  him.  Herodotus  witnessed 
this  scene,  which  he  described  as  follows: 
"Many  women  of  the  wealthier  sort,  who 
are  too  jiroud  to  mix  with  the  others,  drive 
in  covered  carriages  to  the  precincfl,  followed 
by  a  goodly  train  of  attendants,  and  there 
take  their  station.  But  the  larger  number 
.seat  themselves  within  the  holy  enclosure, 
with  wreaths  of  string  about  their  heads — 
and  here  there  is  always  a  great  crowd,  some 
coming  and  others  going.  Lines  of  cord 
mark  out  paths  in  all  dire<ftions  among  the 
women;  and  the  .strangers  pass  along  them 
to  make  their  choice.  A  woman  who  has 
once  taken  her  seat  is  not  allowed  to  return 
home  till  one  of  the  strangers  throws  a  sil- 
ver coin  into  her  lap,  and  takes  her  with 
him  beyond  the  holy  ground.  When  he 
throws  the  coin,  he  says  these  words:  'The 
goddess  Mylitta  (Beltis)  prosper  thee. '  The 
silver  coin  may  be  of  any  size;  it  cannot  be 
refused,  for  that  is  forbidden  by  the  law, 
since  once  thrown  it  is  sacred.  The  woman 
goes  with  the  first  man  who  throws  her 
mone}^  and  rejedts  no  one.  When  she  has 
gone  with  him,  and  so  satisfied  the  goddess, 
she  returns  home;  and  from  that  time  forth 
no  gift,  however  great,  will  prevail  with  her. 
Such  of  the  women  as  are  tall  and  beautiful 
are  soon  released ;  but  others,  who  are  ugly, 
have  to  stay  a  long  time  before  thej-  can  ful- 
fill the  law.  Some  have  even  waited  three 
or  four  years  in  the  precin(5t."  Thus  pros- 
titution was  enjoined  as  a  religious  duty, 
and  its  demoralizing  tendency  could  not 
well  be  exaggerated.  The  statement  of 
Herodotus,  that  "from  that  time  forth  no 
gift,  however  great,  will  prevail  with  a  Baby- 
lonian woman,"  is  not  repeated  by  Strabo, 
and  is  bluntly  contradicfted  by  Quiutus 
Curtius. 

The  BabA-lonian  religious  system  had 
notions  concerning  legal  cleanliness  and  un- 
cleanliness  similar  to  those  prevailing  among 
the  Jews.  The}'  belie\-ed  that  both  man  and 
woman  were  made  impure  by  the  consum- 
mation of  the  marriage  rite,   and   also  by 


every  subsequent  a<5l  of  the  same  kind. 
Every  vessel  touched  by  either  was  con- 
taminated with  this  impurity.  In  order  to 
cleanse  themselves  of  this  impurity,  the  pair 
were  obliged  first  to  sit  down  before  a  censer 
of  burning  incense,  and  then  to  wash  them- 
selves thoroughly.  Onl^'  by  these  means 
were  they  able  to  again  enter  a  condition  of 
legal  cleanliness.  A  like  impurity  affecfted 
such  as  came  into  contact  with  a  human 
corpse. 

The  Babylonian  .symbolism  in  religion 
was  quite  extensive.  First  they  assigned  to 
each  god  a  special  mystic  number,  which 
was  used  as  his  emblem  and  might  also 
stand  for  his  name  in  an  inscriptian.  To 
Anu,  Bel,  and  Hea,  or  Hoa — the  gods  of 
the  First  Triad — were  given  respecftively  the 
numbers  60,  50  and  40.  To  the  Moon-god, 
the  Sun-god  and  the  Air-god — the  gods  of 
the  Second  Triad — were  assigned  the  num- 
bers 30,  20  and  10.  To  Beltis  was  attached 
the  number  15,  to  Nergal  12,  to  Bar,  orNin, 
40,  as  to  Hea,  or  Hoa,  but  this  last  is  un- 
certain. Other  numerical  emblems  remain 
undiscovered. 

There  were  likewi.se  pi(5lorial  s\-mbols  of 
the  various  gods,  as  represented  on  the  cyl- 
inders, many  of  these  forms  filling  every 
vacant  space  where  room  could  be  found  for 
them.  A  certain  number  may  be  given 
definitely  to  particular  divinities.  A  circle, 
either  plain  or  crossed,  symbolized  San,  or 
Shamas,  the  Sun-god;  a  six-rayed  or  eight- 
rayed  star  the  Sun-goddess,  Gula,  or  Anu- 
nit;  a  double  or  triple  thunderbolt  the  Air- 
god,  Vul;  a  serpent  probably  Hea,  or  Hoa; 
a  naked  female  form  Ishtar,  or  Nana;  a  fish 
Bar,  or  Nin.  There  is  a  multitude  of  other 
symbols,  whose  meaning  is  ob.scure;  such  as 
a  double  cross,  a  jar  or  bottle,  an  altar,  a 
double  lozenge,  one  or  more  birds,  an  ani- 
mal between  a  monkey  and  a  jerboa,  a  dog, 
a  double  horn,  a  sacred  tree,  an  ox,  a  bee,  a 
spear-head.  The  inscribed  cylinders  inform 
us  that  the.se  emblems  do  not  refer  to  the 
god  or  goddess  mentioned  in  the  inscription 
upon  them.  Each  seemingly  represents  a 
distinct  deity,  and  their  appearance  upon  a 
cylinder   implies   the   devotion  of  the  man 


302 


ANCIENT  HIS  TOR  Y.—BAB  YL  ONI  A. 


whose  seal  it  is  to  other  deities  besides  those 
whose  particular  servant  he  regards  himself. 
In  some  instances  one  cylinder  has  eight  or 
ten  such  emblems. 

The  principal  Babylonian  temples  had 
special  sacred  names  transmitted  from  the 
old  Chaldsean  times,  and  belonged  to  the 
Turanian  form  of  speech.    The  great  temple 


of  Bel  at  Babylon  was  known  as  Bit-Sag- 
gath;  that  of  the  same  god  at  Niffer  as 
Kharris-Nipra;  that  of  Beltis  at  Erecli  (now 
Warka)  as  Bit- Ana;  that  of  the  Sun-god  at 
Sippara  as  Bit-Parra;  that  of  Anunit  at  tlie 
same  place  as  Bit-Ulmis;  that  of  Nebo  at 
Borsippa  as  Bit-Tsida.  These  names  seldom 
admit  of  explanation. 


.\   SVKIAM    SIIKl'HKRU. 


CHAPTER    VI. 


KINGDOMS    OF  ASIA   MINOR. 


SECTION    I.— GEOGRAPHY    OF    ASIA    MINOR. 


ilSIA  MINOR  is  a  large  penin- 
sula, forming  the  western  ex- 
tremity of  Asia,  and  is  now  a 
part  of  the  Ottoman,  or  Turk- 
ish Empire.  It  is  bounded  on 
the  north  by  the  Euxine,  or  Black  Sea;  on 
the  east  bj'  Armenia;  on  the  south  by  the 
Mediterranean;  and  on  the  west  by  the 
^gean  Sea  (Grecian  Archipelago),  the  Hel- 
lespont (Dardanelles),  the  Propontis  (Sea  of 
Marmora),  and  the  Bosphorus. 

The  term  Asia  Minor,  or  Lesser  Asia, 
was  given  to  this  peninsula  in  the  middle 
ages.  The  region  is  now  called  Anatolia, 
or  Natalia,  meaning  the  East,  or  the  place 
where  the  sun  rises;  being  thus  equivalent 
to  the  French  term  Leva?it,  as  often  applied 
to  the  shores  along  the  eastern  portion  of 
the  Mediterranean. 

Asia  Minor  is  five  hundred  miles  in  extent 
from  east  to  west,  and  two  hundred  and 
sixty  from  north  to  south,  having  an  area 
of  about  one  hundred  thousand  square 
miles,  or  about  half  that  of  France.  It  is 
in  the  same  latitude  as  the  Middle  States  of 
our  Union,  but  has  a  warmer  climate.  In 
the  North,  along  the  Black  Sea,  ice  and 
snow  are  somtimes  seen  in  winter.  In 
the  elevated  central  regions  the  winters  are 
very  severe.  In  the  South  the  seasons  are 
mild;  and  here  such  fruits  as  figs,  oranges, 
lemons,  citrons  and  olives  are  yielded  in 
large  quantities.  Corn,  wine,  oil,  honey, 
coffee,  myrrh  and  frankincen.se  are  pro- 
duced in  abinidance  in  A.sia  Minor.  The 
countrj'  has   varied    .soil,   climate  and  pro- 


du(5lions,  and  many  portions  of  it  are  ex- 
tremely fertile.  The  coasts  of  the  Black 
Sea  are  considered  the  finest  portions  of  Asia 
Minor.  The  western  shores,  along  the 
vEgean,  are  likewise  productive,  and  have 
always  been  noted  for  their  delightful  cli- 
mate. 

The  rivers  of  Asia  Minor,  though  small, 
are  celebrated  in  history.  The  Halys  (now 
Kizil-Ermak)  anciently  divided  Paphlagonia 
and  Pontus,  and  is  the  largest  river  of  Asia 
Minor,  being  about  three  hundred  and  Mty 
miles  long.  The  Iris  (Yeshil-Ermak)  is  a 
considerable  river.  The  Thermodas  (Tar- 
meh)  flowed  through  Themiscyra,  the  home 
of  the  fabled  Amazons.  The  Sangarius 
(Sakaria)  is  the  second  river  in  length.  All 
these  and  numerous  smaller  streams  rise  in 
the  Anti-Taurus  mountain  range,  and  flow 
north  into  the  Black  Sea.  The  rivers  in  the 
South  are  small.  The  Granicus  (Ousvo- 
la) — famed  for  the  first  great  vicftory  of 
Alexander  the  Great  over  the  Persians — 
flows  north  into  the  Propontis.  The  Her- 
mus  and  its  tributary,  the  Padlolus,  were 
celebrated  for  the  gold  found  in  their  sands. 
The  Meander  was  remarkable  for  its  wind- 
ings, and  thence  was  derived  the  term  mean- 
dering, as  u.sed  in  describing  a  crooked 
stream.  These  and  other  small  rivers  flowed 
west  into  the  ^gean. 

Two  mountain  ranges  traverse  Asia  Minor 
from  east  to  west,  the  southern  range  being 
the  Taurus,  and  the  northern  the  Anti-Tau- 
rus. Some  of  their  summits  are  twelve 
thou.sand   feet    high,    and    arc    perpetually 


(305) 


3o6 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASIA    MINOR. 


covered  with  snow.  Many  peaks  of  these 
mountains  are  renowned  in  history.  Mount 
Cragus  was  the  supposed  abode  of  the  fabled 
Chimera.  Mount  Ida  was  the  place  where 
Paris  adjudged  to  Venus  the  prize  of  beauty. 
Mount  Sipylus  was  the  residence  of  Niobe. 
The  sides  of  these  mountains  produce  rich 
forests  of  oak,  ash,  elm,  beech,  etc.  Here 
the  plane-tree  reaches  its  perfedlion.  These 
forests  yield  a  never-failing  supply  of  tim- 
ber for  the  Turkish  navy. 

Asia  Minor  has  many  fresh  and  salt  water 
lakes.  The  mountains  divide  the  surface 
into  long  valleys  and  deep  gorges,  with 
many  plateaus.  In  the  more  elevated  table- 
lands of  the  center,  the  South  and  the 
South-east  are  still  lakes.  The  fresh  water 
lakes  are  in  the  North-west,  in  the  ancient 
Bithynia,  five  being  of  considerable  size. 
Of  these,  the  Ascanius  is  celebrated  for  its 
beauty,  and  on  its  eastern  shore  is  the  city 
of  Nice  (now  Isnek),  famous  for  the  eccle- 
siastical council  held  there  in  A.  D.  325, 
which  established  Christianity  as  the  state 
religion  of  the  Roman  Empire, 

Asia  Minor  abounds  in  mineral  wealth. 
The  Chalybes,  in  the  North-east,  were  early 
celebrated  as  metal-workers.  Copper  is 
found  near  Trebizond,  the  ancient  Trapezus, 
and  other  places  along  the  Black  Sea. 
There  are  likewise  mines  of  lead,  cinnabar 
and  rock-alum.  The  gold  of  the  Pa(?tolus 
filled  the  treasury  of  the  Lydiau  kings.  Vol- 
canic convulsions  have  made  deserts  of  cer- 
tain spots  in  Asia  Minor.  Many  of  the  old 
Roman  roads  in  the  country  yet  remain. 

Along  the  southern  coast  of  Asia  Minor, 
in  the  Mediterranean,  are  the  beautiful 
islands  of  Cyprus  and  Rhodes.  On  the 
western  shores,  in  the  ^-Egean,  are  the  fine 
islands  of  Cos,  Icaria,  Samos,  Chios  and 
lyesbos;  all  of  whose  history  is  closely  con- 
necfled  with  that  of  the  adjacent  territory 
upon  the  mainland. 

Asia  Minor  played  a  considerable  part  in 
the  drama  of  the  world's  history,  and  was  the 
theater  of  man}-  important  events.  Though 
never  the  .seat  of  an\-  veiy  great  empire — the 
ancient  Lydian  being  the  most  ])owerful — its 
soil  witnessed  many  struggles  for  dominion 


in  ancient  and  mediaeval  times.  It  has  been 
rendered  famous  by  the  personal  prowess 
and  the  martial  deeds  of  Achilles,  Darius, 
Xerxes,  Alexander  the  Great,  Mithridates, 
Pompey,  Caesar,  Tamerlane,  Bajazet  and 
Mohammed  II. 

There  is  very  little  unity  in  the  history 
of  Asia  Minor.  Only  three  of  its  ancient 
independent  kingdoms  are  of  any  import- 
ance— Cilicia,  Phn,-gia  and  Lydia — the  last 
of  which  was  the  most  powerful,  and  was 
contemporary  with  the  great  empires  of 
Media  and  Babylonia.  Since  the  fall  of  the 
last  of  these,  Asia  Minor  has  been  under  the 
successive  dominion  of  the  Persians,  the 
Macedonian  Greeks,  the  Romans,  the  vSeljuk 
Turks,  the  Mongol  Tartars,  and  for  the  last 
five  centuries  luider  the  Ottoman  Turks, 
under  who,se  pernicious  rule  the  country 
has  everywhere  fallen  into  decay. 

The  petty  states  or  divisions  of  ancient 
Asia  Minor  varied  in  their  respe(5live  bound- 
aries at  different  times,  and  some  of  them 
were  only  geographical  divisions  or  depend- 
ent provinces  of  other  states,  while  others 
were  independent  kingdoms  at  various  pe- 
riods. In  the  northern  part  of  the  peninsula, 
bordering  on  the  Euxine,  beginning  from 
the  west,  were  Bithynia,  Paphlagonia  and 
Pontus.  In  the  western  portion,  bordering 
on  the  j-Egean,  beginning  from  the  north, 
were  Mysia,  Lydia  and  Caria.  In  the  south- 
ern part,  bordering  on  the  Mediterranean, 
commencing  from  the  west,  were  Lycia,  Pam- 
phylia  and  Cilicia.  In  the  interior,  begin- 
ning from  the  west,  were  Phrj-gia,  Galatia, 
Lycaonia,  Pisidia,  Isauria  and  Cappadocia. 

The  western  part  of  Mysia,  on  the  coast, 
was  called  Lesser  Phrj'gia,  Troas,  or  the 
Troad.  It  was  famous  for  the  Trojan  plains 
and  the  city  of  Troj',  immortalized  by 
Homer. 

Bithynia,  Paphlagonia  and  Pontus  were 
skirted  with  Greek  colonies  on  the  Euxine 
coast,  during  the  period  of  Grecian  com- 
merce. The  Hah's  and  Sangarius,  the  prin- 
cipal rivers  of  Asia  Minor,  which  flow  north 
into  the  Euxine,  were  in  this  .se<ftion. 

The  whole  western  or  ^Egean  coast  of  the 
peninsula,  in  Mjsia,  Lydia  and  Caria,  were 


PHRYCIA    AND    CILICIA. 


307 


colonized  hy  the  Greeks,  whose  commercial 
cities  in  Ionia,  ^olia  and  Doris  were  the 
most  flourishing^  free  states  of  antiquity, 
prior  to  their  conquest  by  the  Persians.  The 
chief  Greek  cities  of  Asia  Minor  were  Ephe- 
sus,  Smyrna,  Miletus  and  Halicarnassus. 

Lydia — at  first  called  Mteonia — was  the 
richest  and  most  fertile,  and  ultimately  the 
most  famous  and  the  most  powerful,  coun- 
try of  Asia  Minor.  Its  renowned  capital  and 
metropolis,  Sardis,  was  situated  on  the  river 
Pacftolus  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Tmolus,  fa- 
mous for  its  rich  veins  of  gold.  Magnesia 
and  Philadelphia  were  other  leading  cities 
of  Lydia. 

The  limits  of  Phr>-gia  were  constantly 
changing.  Its  chief  cities  were  Gordium,  the 
capital,  and  Celaense  in  ancient  times;  but 
many  others  were  erected  when  the  Mace- 


donian Greeks  became  masters  of  the  coun- 
tr>',  the  chief  of  which  were  Apamca,  Lao- 
dicea  and  Colossc. 

Galatia  was  .so  called  from  a  horde  of 
Gauls  who  entered  the  country  in  the  third 
century  before  the  Christian  era.  Lsauria 
and  Lj-caonia  were  intersecfted  by  the  Taurus 
mountain  chain.  Cappadocia  lay  between 
the  rivers  Halys  and  Euphrates,  and  its 
chief  town  was  Mazaca. 

Caria  was  chiefly  celebrated  for  the  prcs- 
perous  Greek  colonies  on  its  coa.st.  Lycia, 
Pisidia  and  Pamphylia  were  mountainous 
regions  in  the  South.  Cilicia  was  in  the 
South-east,  and  was  separated  from  Syria  by 
the  Amanus  mountains;  its  chief  cities  be- 
ing Tarsus  and  Anchiale,  both  foimded  by 
Sennacherib,  the  renowned  Ass\-rian  mon- 
arch. 


SECTION    11.— PHRYGIA    AND    CILICIA. 


pN  EARLY  times  Asia  Minor  was 
occupied  by  various  Aryan  na- 
tions —  Phr>'gians,  Cilicians, 
Lydians,  Carians,  Paphlago- 
nians  and  Cappadocians — who 
migrated  into  the  country  from  the  East  in 
primitive  times,  and  were  almost  equal  in 
power.  This  equality,  along  with  the  nat- 
ural division  of  the  country  by  mountain 
ranges,  prevented  the  growth  of  a  powerful 
empire  in  Asia  Minor,  and  favored  the  de- 
velopment of  a  number  of  parallel,  inde- 
pendent kingdoms.  Herodotus  states  that 
the  country  contained  thirty  nations  in  his 
time. 

The  Phr>'gians  are  said  to  have  been  the 
first  Aryan  immigrants  into  Asia  Minor,  and 
they  probabh'  at  one  time  occupied  the 
whole  peninsula,  but  successive  migrations 
of  other  tribes  from  the  east  and  the  west 
pressed  them  in  from  the  coast,  except  in 
the  region  just  south  of  the  Hellespont,  and 
caused  them  to  settle  in  the  center  of  the 
peninsula,  where  they  occupied  a  large  and 
fertile  country,  abounding  in  rich  pastures 


and  containing  a  number  of  salt  lakes.  The 
Phr\-gians  were  a  brave,  but  brutal  race,  en- 
gaged chiefly  in  agriculture,  particularly-  in 
the  culture  of  the  vine.  They  migrated 
from  the  mountains  of  Annenia,  bringing 
with  them  a  tradition  of  the  Deluge  and  of 
the  resting  of  the  ark  on  Mount  Ararat.  In 
primitive  times  they  lived  in  caves  or  habi- 
tations which  they  hollowed  out  of  the 
rocks  on  the  sides  of  the  hills,  and  many  of 
these  rock-cities  can  yet  be  found  in  every 
portion  of  Asia  Minor.  Before  the  time  of 
Homer,  however,  the  Phrj-gians  had  well- 
built  towns  and  a  flourishing  commerce. 
Their  religion  consisted  of  many  dark  and 
mysterious  rites,  some  of  which  were  subse- 
quently adopted  \>y  the  Greeks.  The  wor- 
.ship  of  Cybele,  and  of  Sabazius,  the  god  of 
the  vine,  was  accompanied  by  the  wildest 
music  and  dancing. 

The  Phrj-gians  appear  to  have  had  a  well- 
organized  monarchy  about  B.  C.  750,  or 
probably  earlier,  their  capital  lieing  Gor- 
dium, on  the  Sangarius  river.  Their  kings 
were  alternately  named  Gokdi.^s  and  MiD.\s, 


3o8 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— ASIA    MINOR. 


but  we  have  no  clironological  list  of  these. 
Phrygia  declined  as  Lydia  grew  powerful, 
and  was  conquered  by  Lydia  and  became  a 
province  of  that  monarchy  about  B.  C.  560. 
Cilicia  occupied  the  south-eastern  part  of 
Asia  Minor,  and  was  a  rich  and  fertile 
countrj',  whose  inhabitants  were  employed 
in  agriculture.  It  was  an  independent  mon- 
archy during  the  early  period  of  the  Assyr- 
ian kingdom.  It  was  subdued  by  Sargon, 
who,  about  B.  C.  711,  bestowed  the  country 
on  Ambris,  King  of  Tubal,  as  a  dowry  for 
his  daughter,  thus  making  it  tributary  to 
Assyria.  Having  revolted  from  Assyria, 
Cilicia  was  invaded   and  ravaged  by  Sen- 


nacherib about  B.  C.  701.  That  great  As- 
syrian king  founded  in  Cilicia  the  city  of 
Tarsus,  about  B.  C.  685 — afterwards  so  re- 
nowned as  the  birth-place  of  St.  Paul.  Cili- 
cia having  again  revolted  against  Assyrian 
rule,  Esar-haddon  invaded  and  ravaged  the 
country  about  B.  C.  677.  A  king  named 
Tyennesis  ascended  the  throne  of  Cilicia 
about  B.  C.  616,  and  thereafter  all  the  CiU- 
cian  monarchs  bore  that  name.  Cilicia 
maintained  her  independence  against  Lydia, 
but  was  conquered  by  the  Persians  and  be- 
came a  province  of  the  vast  Medo-Persian 
Empire  during  the  reign  of  Cambyses,  the 
son  and  successor  of  Cyrus  the  Great. 


SECTION    III.— KINGDOM    OP    LYDIA. 


HE  most  famous,  and  ulti- 
mately the  most  powerful,  of 
all  the  kingdoms  of  Asia 
Minor  was  Lydia,  at  first 
called  Mseonia.  Its  territory 
varied  in  geographical  extent  at  different 
times.  Lydia  proper  was  bounded  on  the 
north  hy  Mysia,  on  the  east  by  Phrj'gia,  on 
the  south  by  Caria,  and  on  the  west  by  the 
^Egean  sea.  It  ultimately  embraced  the 
whole  peninsula,  except  Lycia,  Cilicia  and 
Cappadocia.  Sardis,  its  renowned  capital 
and  metropolis,  was  situated  on  the  Pacflo- 
lus,  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Tmolus,  with  its 
strong  citadel  on  the  side  of  a  lofty  hill  with 
a  perpendicular  precipice  on  one  side.  The 
other  cities  of  Lydia  were  Magnesia,  at  the 
foot  of  Mount  Sipylus;  Thyatira  and  Phila- 
delphia. Ephesus  was  the  chief  of  the 
Greek  cities  on  the  coast  of  Lydia.  The 
original  territory  of  Lydia  was  noted  for  its 
wonderful  fertility  and  for  its  mineral  wealth. 
The  Padtolus,  a  branch  of  the  Hennus,  car- 
ried a  rich  supply  of  gold  from  the  sides  of 
Mount  Tmolus,  and  this  precious  metal  was 
washed  into  the  streets  of  Sardis.  Mounts 
Tmolus  and  vSipylus  contained  rich  veins  of 
gold.  The  Lydians  were  celebrated  for  their 
wealth  and  culture,  and  were  the  first  people 


who  coined  money.  They  "were  one  of  the 
earliest  commercial  people  on  the  Mediterra- 
nean, and  their  scented  ointments,  rich  car- 
pets, and  skilled  laborers  or  slaves  were 
highly  celebrated.  The  Greeks  received  from 
them  the  Lydian  flute,  and  subsequently 
the  cithara  of  three  and  of  twenty  strings,  and 
imitated  their  harmony.  The  Homeric 
poems  describe  the  Lydians,  or  Masones,  as 
men  on  horseback,  clad  in  armor,  and  speak 
of  their  commerce  and  wealth.  It  seems 
that  the  worship  of  the  Lydians  resembled 
that  of  the  Syrians,  and  was  polluted  with 
its  immoral  pra<5lices.  The  ancient  writers 
often  mention  the  depravity  of  the  Lj'dians, 
while  admitting  their  skill  and  courage  in 
war.  When  subdued  they  submitted  quietly 
to  their  conquerors." 

According  to  Josephus,  the  Lydians  were 
named  from  Lud,  a  son  of  Shem.  Herod- 
otus, however,  derives  the  name  from 
Lydus,  an  ancient  king  of  the  countrJ^ 
An  absolute  hereditary  monarchy  was  early 
established  in  Lydia.  Three  successive  dy- 
nasties governed  the  country — the  Atyada^ 
so  called  from  Atys,  the  son  of  Manes,  the 
first  of  the  kings  regarding  whom  no  dis- 
tinct account  is  given;  the  Heraclida;,  or  de- 
scendants of  Hercules;  and  the  Mermnada, 


LYDIA. 


309 


under  whom  Lydia  ultimatel}-  became  a 
powerful  kingdom. 

Herodotus  tells  us  tliat  the  Lydian  tradi- 
tions represented  Ninus  and  Belus  as  going 
from  Lydia  to  found  the  cities  of  Nineveh 
and  Babylon.  We  also  learn  from  Herod- 
otus of  other  Lydian  traditions.  It  is  said 
that  in  the  reign  of  Atj's,  the  son  and  suc- 
cessor of  Planes,  the  pressure  of  a  se\-ere 
famine  cau.sed  the  king  to  compel  a  portion 
of  the  nation  to  emigrate  to  the  distant 
Hesperia,  under  the  command  of  Tyrrheuus, 
the  king's  son.  After  building  a  fleet  at 
Smyrna,  they  sailed  westward  for  their  new 
countr>%  which  proved  to  be  Etruria,  in 
Italy;  and  thus  was  founded  the  Etruscan 
nation.  At  another  time  the  Lj'dians 
pushed  their  conquests  beN-ond  the  limits  of 
Asia  Minor  to  the  very  southern  extremity 
of  Syria,  where  their  general,  Ascalus,  is 
said  to  have  founded  the  famous  city  of 
Ascalon,  in  the  land  of  the  Philistines. 
Little  confidence  is  to  be  placed  in  any  of 
these  early  Lydian  traditions  concerning  the 
remote  period  of  the  nation. 

The  real  historj-  of  Lydia  extends  only  as 
far  back  as  the  ninth  century  before  Christ. 
The  ruling  dynasty  of  the  Heraclidae  grew 
jealous  of  the  Mermnadse  and  treated  them 
with  injustice,  whereupon  the  Mermnadse 
sought  safety  in  flight;  but  when  they  found 
themselves  strong  enough  they  returned, 
murdered  the  Heraclide  king,  and  placed 
their  leader,  Gyges,  upon  the  throne  of 
Lydia,  about  B.  C.  700.  The  prosperity 
of  Lydia  greatl}-  increased  under  Gyges, 
and  the  nation  assumed  an  aggressive  at- 
titude toward  its  neighbors.  The  great 
amount  of  his  revenue  made  the  name  of 
Gyges  proverbial,  and  he  spread  abroad  his 
fame  by  sending  to  the  temple  of  Del- 
phi, in  Greece,  presents  of  such  magnifi- 
cence that  they  were  the  admiration  of  af- 
ter times.  The  predecessors  of  Gyges  had 
been  on  friendly'  terms  with  the  Greek 
colonists  on  the  western  coast  of  Asia  Minor. 
But  Gyges  changed  this  peaceful  policy  for 
the  purpose  of  extending  his  sea-board,  and 
thus  made  war  on  the  Greek  maritime  cities, 
attacking  Miletus   and   Smyrna  unsuccess- 


fully, but  capturing  the  Ionic  city  of  Colo- 
phon. Herodotus,  Eusebius,  Nicolas  of 
Damascus,  and  Xanthus  are  our  main 
authorities  for  the  history  of  Lydia  thus  far 
related.  Some  tell  us  that  Gyges  also  quar- 
reled with  the  inland  city  of  Magnesia,  and 
reduced  it  to  submission  after  many  inva- 
sions of  its  territory;  but  Herodotus  says 
nothing  about  this  event.  Strabo  says 
that  Gj'ges  conquered  the  whole  of  the 
Troad,  and  that  the  Milesians  could  only 
establish  their  colony  of  Abydos  on  the 
Hellespont  after  obtaining  his  permission. 
The  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor  and  the  islands 
of  the  yEgean  evidently  considered  Gyges  a 
rich  and  powerful  monarch,  and  constantly 
celebrated  his  wealth,  his  conquests  and  his 
romantic  histon,-. 

At  the  end  of  the  long  reign  of  Gyges  a 
great  calamitj-  fell  upon  Lydia.  The  Cim- 
merians, from  the  peninsula  now  known  as 
the  Crimea,  and  the  adjacent  region  of  the 
present  Southern  Russia,  pressed  on  by  the 
Scythians  from  the  steppe  region,  crossed 
the  Caucasus  and  entered  Asia  Minor  \>\ 
way  of  Cappadocia,  spreading  terror  and 
desolation  all  around.  Alarmed  at  this  bar- 
barian invasion,  Gyges  placed  himself  under 
the  proteclion  of  Assyria,  and  defeated  the 
Cimmerians,  taking  several  of  their  chiefs 
prisoners.  Grateful  for  the  Assyrian  alli- 
ance, Gyges  sent  an  embassy  to  Asshur- 
bani-pal  and  courted  his  favor  b\-  rich  gifts 
and  bj'  sending  him  Cimmerian  chiefs. 
These  the  Assj-rian  monarch  looked  upon 
as  tribute.  Gyges,  however,  afterwards 
broke  with  Assyria,  and  aided  the  Egyptian 
rebel,  Psammetichus,  in  reestablishing  his 
independence.  Assj'ria  thereupon  w  ithdrew 
her  proteclion  from  Lydia,  and  Gyges  was 
left  to  his  own  resources,  which  were  totally 
inadequate  when  the  great  crisis  came. 
Sweeping  e\"erything  before  them,  the  fierce 
Cimmerian  hordes  swarmed  resistlessly  into 
the  western  portions  of  Asia  Minor;  overrun- 
ning Paphlagonia,  Phrygia,  Bithynia,  Lydia 
and  Ionia.  Gyges  was  defeated  and  killed 
in  battle  with  them.  The  inhabitants  shut 
themselves  up  in  their  walled  towns,  where 
they  were  often  besieged  by  the  barbarians. 


3JO 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— ASIA    MINOR. 


Sardis  itself,  except  its  citadel,  was  taken, 
and  a  terrible  massacre  of  its  inhabitants  en- 
sued. Within  a  generation  Lydia  recovered 
from  this  terrible  blow  and  renewed  her  at- 
tacks on  the  Greek  colonies  upon  the  coast. 

Gyges  was  succeeded  on  the  Lydian 
throne  by  his  son,  Ardys,  who  made  war 
on  Miletus.  Sadyattes,  the  son  and  suc- 
cessor of  Ardys,  continued  this  war.  Aly- 
ATTES,  the  son  and  successor  of  Sadyattes, 
pursued  the  same  aggressive  policy  toward 
Miletus,  and  besieged  and  took  Smyrna  and 
ravaged  the  territor>'  of  Clazomente.  He- 
rodotus, Nicolas  of  Damascus,  Strabo  and 
Eusebius  are  our  main  authorities  for  the 
e\-ents  of  these  reigns. 

The  great  task  of  the  reign  of  Ah'attes 
was  the  expulsion  of  the  Cimmerians  from 
Asia  Minor.  The  barbarian  hordes,  greatly 
exhausted  by  time,  by  their  losses  in  battle, 
and  by  their  excesses,  had  long  ceased  to  be 
dangerous,  but  were  still  able  to  menace  the 
peace  of  the  country.  According  to  Herod- 
otus, Alyattes  is  said  to  have  "driven  them 
out  of  Asia."  This  would  imply  that  they 
were  expelled  from  Paphlagonia,  Bithynia, 
Lydia,  Phrygia  and  Cilicia  ;  a  result  which 
the  Lydian  king  achieved  by  placing  him- 
self at  the  head  of  a  league  embracing  the 
states  of  Asia  Minor  west  of  the  Halys. 
Thus  Alyattes,  by  freeing  A.sia  Minor  of  the 
presence  of  the  Cimmerian  hordes,  proved  his 
great  military  capacity,  and  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  great  Lydian  Empire. 

The  conquest  of  Cappadocia  by  Cyaxares 
the  Mede,  who  thus  extended  the  western 
frontier  of  the  Median  Empire  to  the  Halys, 
brought  the  Median  and  Lydian  monarchs 
into  collision.  Coveting  the  great  fertile 
plains  west  of  the  Halys,  Cyaxares  soon 
found  a  pretext  for  attacking  the  dominions 
of  Alyattes.  Herodotus  tells  us  that  a 
body  of  nomad  Scyths  had  sen-ed  inider  the 
Median  king,  serving  him  faithfully  for  some 
time,  chiefly  as  hunters;  but  disliking  their 
position  or  di.strusting  the  intentions  of  their 
Median  mtisters,  they  finally  abandoned 
Media,  and  proceeding  to  Asia  Minor,  were 
welcomed  by  Alyattes.  Cyaxares  sent  an 
embassy  to  Sardis  demanding  of  the  Lydian 


king  the  surrender  of  the  fugitive  Scj'ths ; 
a  demand  which  Alyattes  answered  with 
a  refusal  and  immediate  preparations  for  war. 
The  numerous  other  princes  of  Asia  Minor, 
alarmed  at  the  rapid  advance  of  the  Median 
dominion  westward,  willingly  placed  them- 
selves under  the  protedlion  of  the  King  of 
Lydia,  to  prevent  the  absorption  of  their 
respecftive  territories  into  the  powerful 
Median  Empire,  as  they  had  previously  put 
themselves  under  his  leadership  in  the  strug- 
gle which  resulted  in  the  expulsion  of  the 
Cimmerians. 

Lydia  herself  had  considerable  resources. 
She  was  the  most  fertile  country  of  Asia 
Minor,  which  was  one  of  the  richest  regions 
of  the  ancient  world.  At  this  time  Lydia 
was  producing  large  quantities  of  gold, 
which  was  foimd  in  great  quantities  in  the 
Padlolus,  and  perhaps  in  other  small  streams 
flowing  from  Mount  Tmolus.  The  Lydian 
people  were  warlike  and  ingenious.  They 
had  invented  the  art  of  coining  money,  say 
Xenophon,  Herodotus  and  others.  They 
exhibited  much  taste  in  their  devices.  They 
also  claimed  to  have  invented  many  games 
familiar  to  the  Greeks.  Herodotus  also  in- 
fonns  us  that  they  were  the  first  who  earned 
a  living  by  shop-keeping.  They  were  skill- 
ful in  the  use  of  musical  instruments,  and 
their  own  peculiar  musical  style  was  much 
favored  by  the  Greeks,  though  condemned 
as  effeminate  by  some  of  the  Grecian  phi- 
losophers. The  Lydians  were  also  brave 
and  manly.  They  fought  mostly  on  horse- 
back, and  were  good  riders,  carrying  long 
spears,  which  they  employed  very  skillfully. 
Nicolas  of  Damascus  says  that,  even  as  early 
as  the  time  of  the  Heraclide  dynasty,  they 
were  able  to  muster  thirty  thousand  cavalr>\ 
They  found  recreation  in  the  chase  of  the 
wild-boar. 

Thus  L>-dia  was  no  contemptible  enemy, 
and,  with  the  aid  of  her  allies,  she  proved 
herself  fully  a  match  for  the  great  Median 
Empire.  For  six  years,  Herodotus  tells  us, 
did  the  war  go  on  between  Media  and  Lydia 
with  various  success,  until,  as  we  have  .seen 
in  the  history  of  Media,  it  was  tenninated 
by  the   sudden   eclipse   of   the   sun  in  the 


LVniA. 


3" 


midst  of  a  battle,  which  excited  the  super- 
stitious fears  of  both  parties  and  led  to  the 
negotiation  of  a  peace.  Syeiinesis,  King  of 
Cilicia,  the  ally  of  the  King  of  Lydia,  and 
Labynetus  of  Babylon,  the  ally  of  the  King 
of  Media,  proposed  an  annistice,  which 
being  agreed  on,  a  treaty  of  peace  was  at 
once  concluded,  which  left  everj'thing  in 
status  quo.  The  Kings  of  Media  and  Lydia 
swore  a  friendship,  which  was  to  be  ce- 
mented by  the  marriage  of  Aryenis,  the 
daughter  of  Alyattes,  with  Astyages,  the 
son  of  Cyaxares.  By  this  peace  the  three 
great  empires  of  the  time — Lydia,  Media 
and  Babylonia — became  firm  friends  and 
allies,  and  stood  side  by  side  in  peace  for  fifty 
years,  pursuing  their  separate  courses  with- 
out jealousy  or  collision.  The  crown-princes 
of  the  three  empires  had  became  brothers, 
and  all  Western  Asia,  from  the  shores  of 
the  ^-Egean  on  the  west  to  the  Persian  Gulf 
on  the  east,  was  ruled  b}'  interconnected  dy- 
nasties, bound  b)-  treaties  to  respedl  each 
other's  rights,  and  to  assist  each  other  in 
certain  important  emergencies;  and  this 
quarter  of  the  globe  entered  upon  an  era  of 
tranquillity  which  it  had  never  before  known. 

Relieved  from  the  fear  of  Median  conquest 
by  the  treat j-  just  mentioned,  Alyattes  re- 
newed the  war  against  the  Greek  colonists 
on  the  western  coast  of  Asia  Minor  during 
the  last  j^ears  of  his  reign.  He  captured 
Smyrna  and  gained  other  important  suc- 
cesses. 

On  the  death  of  Alyattes  in  B.  C.  568,  his 
son,  Crcesus,  became  his  successor.  Croe- 
sus was  the  most  famous,  as  well  as  the  last, 
of  the  Kings  of  Lydia.  He  continued  the 
wars  begun  by  his  father  against  the  Asiatic 
Greeks,  and  conquered  the  Ionian,  ^ijolian 
and  Dorian  Greeks,  and  all  Asia  Minor  west 
of  the  Halys,  excepting  Lycia  and  Cilicia; 
thus  enlarging  his  dominion  by  the  acquisi- 
tion of  Phrygia,  Mysia,  Paphlagonia,  Bi- 
thynia,  Pamphylia  and  Caria.  Herodotus 
remarks  that  he  was  the  first  conqueror  of 
the  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor,  who  had  hitherto 
never  been  subjecfl  to  any  foreign  power. 
Under  him  Ljdia  attained  the  highest  pin- 
nacle  of  her  glorj'   and  prosperity;  but  no 


sooner  had  she  reached  this  po.sition  among 
the  nations  of  the  time  than  she  was  over- 
thrown by  a  power  which  made  itself  master 
of  all  the  then-known  world  outside  of 
Europe — the  great  Medo- Persian  Empire, 
founded  by  Cyrus  the  Great  on  the  ruins  of 
the  Median  limpire,  and  which  ab.sorbed 
Babylonia  and  Egypt  along  with  Media  and 
Lydia. 

The  kingdom  of  Lydia  was  now  one  of 
the  great  powers  of  the  world  and  was  far 
more  extensive  than  at  any  previous  period, 
and  may  truly  be  called  an  empire.  Its 
capital,  Sardis,  advantageously  situated  at 
the  foot  of  Mount  Tmolus,  on  the  river 
Pacftolus,  famous  for  its  golden  sands,  now 
became  famed  among  the  great  cities  of 
Asia.  Xenophon  regarded  it  as  second  only 
to  Babylon  in  riches.  Herodotus  observes 
that  it  was  a  place  of  great  resort,  and  was 
frequented  by  all  Grecians  distinguished  for 
their  talents  and  wisdom. 

CrcEsus  was  renowned  throughout  the 
aticient  world  for  his  wealth,  and  his  name  be- 
came proverbial  for  great  riches.  His  story 
has  furnished  a  subjeA  for  moralists  of  every 
Subsequent  age  to  illustrate  the  uncertainty 
of  earthh'  prosperity  and  the  vicissitudes  of 
human  life.  Crcesus  considered  himself  the 
most  fortunate  of  men.  When  only  crown- 
prince  his  father  had  associated  him  in  the 
government  of  the  kingdom,  and  while  hold- 
ing this  station,  he  was  visited  by  Solon,  the 
great  sage  and  lawgiver  of  Athens,  and  one 
of  the  "Seven  Wise  Men  of  Greece." 
Crcesus  entertained  his  distinguished  guest 
with  great  hospitality  in  his  palace;  but  the 
sage  viewed  the  magnificence  of  the  court 
with  calm  indifference,  which  mortified 
Crcesus.  Solon  was  conducted  to  the  ro^al 
treasury  to  view  and  admire  the  riches  con- 
tained therein.  Croesus  then  asked  him 
whom  he  considered  the  happiest  man  in  the 
world,  expecting  to  hear  himself  named. 
Solon  replied:  "  Tellus,  an  Athenian,  who, 
under  the  protecftion  of  an  excellent  form  of 
government,  had  many  virtuous  and  amia- 
ble children.  He  saw  their  offspring,  and 
the3'  all  sur\'ived  him.  At  the  close  of  an 
honorable  and  prosperous  life,  on  the  field 


312 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASIA    MINOR. 


of  victon-,  he  was  rewarded  by  a  public 
funeral  by  the  city." 

Croesus,  disappointed  with  this  reply,  then 
asked  Solon  whom  he  regarded  as  the  next 
happiest  person.  The  sage  mentioned  two 
brothers  of  Argos,  who  had  won  the  ad- 
miration of  their  countrj-men  by  their  devo- 
tion to  their  mother,  and  who  had  been  re- 
warded by  the  gods  with  a  pleasant  and 
painless  death.  Croesus,  in  astonishment, 
ssked:  "Man  of  Athens,  think  you  so 
meanly  of  my  prosperity  as  to  rank  me  be- 
low private  persons  of  low  condition?" 
Solon,  not  willing  either  to  flatter  or  disap- 
point Croesus,  replied:  "King  of  Lydia,  the 
Greeks  have  no  taste  for  the  splendors  of 
royalty.  Moreover,  the  vicissitudes  of  life 
suffer  us  not  to  be  elated  by  any  present 
good  fortune,  or  to  admire  that  felicity 
which  is  liable  to  change.  He,  therefore, 
whom  Heaven  smiles  upon  to  the  last,  is,  in 
our  estimation,  the  happy  man!"  After 
giving  this  answer,  the  Athenian  sage  took 
his  departure,  leaving  Croesus  chagrined, 
but  none  the  wiser,  ^sop,  the  celebrated 
fabulist,  is  also  said  to  have  visited  Croesus 
at  Sardis,  and  is  said  to  have  observed  to 
Solon:  "You  see  that  we  must  either  not 
come  near  kings,  or  say  only  what  is  agree- 
able to  them."  To  which  the  sage  replied: 
"We  should  either  say  what  is  useful,  or 
say  nothing." 

The  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  which  Solon 
desired  Croesus  to  ponder  upon,  were  soon 
exemplified  in  his  own  case.  Croesus  had 
two  sons,  one  of  whom  was  dumb,  but  the 
other,  named  Atys,  was  endowed  with  su- 
perior accomplishments.  Croesus  is  said  to 
have  had  a  vision  warning  him  that  this  son 
would  die  by  the  point  of  an  iron  spear. 
The  frightened  father  resolved  to  settle  him 
in  marriage  and  devote  him  to  a  peaceful 
life.  He  took  away  his  command  in  the 
army,  and  removed  every  military  weapon 
from  those  about  his  person.  About  this 
time  a  certain  Adrastus,  who  had  accident- 
ally killed  his  brother,  .sought  refuge  in 
Sardis,  having  been  banished  from  home  by 
his  father;  and,  in  accordance  with  ancient 
pagan  custom,  sought  expiation  of  a  neigh- 


boring prince.  Belonging  to  the  royal  familj' 
of  Phrygia,  he  was  received  in  a  friendly 
manner  by  Croesus,  who  allowed  him  an 
asylum  at  his  court.  Shortly  afterward  a 
wild-boar  of  remarkable  size  made  his  ap- 
pearance near  Olympus,  in  Mysia.  The 
frightened  inhabitants  requested  Croesus  to 
send  his  son  with  hunters  and  dogs  to  de- 
stroy the  beast.  The  king,  who  had  not 
forgotten  the  vision,  kept  back  his  son,  but 
offered  them  a  seledl  band  of  dogs  and  hunt- 
ers. The  young  man,  mortified  by  his  father's 
resolution,  remonstrated,  until  he  was  per- 
mitted to  go  to  the  cha.se,  under  the  protec- 
tion of  Adrastus.  They  attacked  the  boar, 
and  the  king's  son  was  killed  bj^  an  acci- 
dental thrust  from  the  spear  of  the  Phrj-gian 
refugee.  The  unhappy  monarch  pardoned 
Adrastus,  thinking  that  he  was  the  instru- 
ment of  an  inevitable  fatality;  but  the  killer, 
in  the  deepest  anguish  for  what  he  had  done, 
retired,  in  the  darkness  of  night,  to  the 
grave  of  Atys,  confessing  himself  the  most 
miserable  of  mankind,  and  there  committitig 
suicide.  Croesus  mourned  for  two  years  the 
loss  of  his  son,  who  was  his  heir  to  the 
throne  of  I^ydia. 

Alarmed  at  the  rapid  growth  of  the  new 
Medo-Persian  Empire,  which  had  recently 
been  founded  by  Cyrus  the  Great  on  the 
ruins  of  the  great  Median  power,  and  seeing 
that  a  struggle  for  the  dominion  of  Asia 
Minor  was  inevitable,  Croesus  entered  into 
an  alliance  with  Egypt  and  Babylonia 
against  the  new  Persian  power.  Before  en- 
tering upon  the  struggle,  the  King  of  Lydia, 
who  was  very  superstitious  and  would  never 
begin  any  important  undertaking  without 
consulting  the  ministers  of  the  various  dei- 
ties worshiped  in  those  countries,  inquired 
of  various  oracles  as  to  the  result  of  his  en- 
terprise. But  to  assure  himself  of  the  truth 
of  the  answers  of  the  oracles  he  consulted, 
he  sent  messengers  to  all  the  most  famous 
oracles  of  Greece  and  Egypt,  with  orders  to 
inquire,  every  one  at  his  respedlive  oracle, 
what  Croesus  was  doing  at  such  a  day  and 
such  an  hour,  before  agreed  upon.  The  re- 
plies are  said  to  have  been  unsatisfactory  to 
the  monarch.     But  it  is  said  that  as  soon  as 


as^fe^* 


•j-^r-- 


fl^' 


CROEvSUvS   ON   THE   r'UNERAI,    I'VRK. 


LVniA. 


313 


the  messengers  entered  the  temple  of  Del- 
])hi,  the  oracle  there  ga\'e  this  answer : 
"  I  couut  the  sand;  I  measure  out  llic  sea; 
The  silent  and  the  dumb  are  heard  by  uie ; 
Even  now  the  odors  to  my  sense  that  rise, 
A  tortoise  boiling  with  a  lamb  supplies, 
Where  brass  below  and  brass  above  it  lies." 

When  Croesus  heard  of  this  reply,  he  de- 
clared that  the  oracle  of  Delphi  was  the  only 
true  one;  becatise,  on  the  day  mentioned,  re- 
solving to  do  what  would  be  difficult  to  dis- 
cover or  explain,  he  had  cut  a  lamb  and  a  tor- 
toise in  pieces  and  boiled  them  together  in  a 
covered  brass  vessel.  This  stor>'  is  given  us 
by  Herodotus.  There  is  no  doubt  about  Croe- 
sus consulting  the  oracle,  but  the  marvelous 
part  of  the  tale  was  likely  an  invention  of 
the  priests  of  Delphi  to  raise  the  reputation 
of  their  oracle. 

Croesus  is  represented  as  being  satisfied  of 
the  divine  charadter  of  the  responses  of  the 
Delphic  oracle,  and  as  therefore  resolved  to 
make  a  magnificent  gift  to  the  oracle.     Col- 
leifling   three   thousand   chosen   vicflims,   a 
vast  number  of  couches  overlaid  with  gold 
and  silver,  along  with  goblets  of  gold  and 
ptirple  vests  of  immense  value,  he  cast  all 
these  into  a  sacrificial  pile  and  burned  them. 
The   melted  gold  ran  into  a  mass,  and  he 
made  of  this  a  vast  number  of  large  tablets, 
and  likewise  a  lion;  and  these  and  a  num- 
ber of  vessels  of  gold  and  silver  he  sent  to 
the  Delphic  oracle.     The  lyydians  conveying 
these   presents   were    instrudled  to   inquire 
whether   Croesus  could  successfully  under- 
take an  expedition  against  the  Persians,  and 
whether  he  should  strengthen  himself  by 
forming  any  new  alliances.     The  response 
of  the  oracle  was,  that  if  Croesus  made  war 
on  the  Persians  he  would  ruin  a  great  em- 
pire, and  that  he  wotild  do  well  by  making 
alliances   with   the    most   powerful   of    the 
Grecian  states. 

The  Lydian  king,  regarding  this  ambigu- 
ous answer  as  ftilly  satisfadlory,  was  exceed- 
ingly elated  with  the  hope  of  conquering 
Cyrus  the  Great.  He  consulted  the  Del- 
phic oracle  a  third  time,  wishing  to  know  if 
his  power  wotild  be  permanent.  He  ob- 
tained the  following  reply; 


"When  o'er  the  Medcs  a  mule  shall  sit  on  high, 
O'er  pebbly  Hermus,  then  soft  Lydian  fly; 
Fly  with  all  haste;  for  safety  scorn  thy  fame, 
Nor  scruple  to  deserve  a  coward's  name." 

Fully  satisiied  with  this  new  answer,  Croe- 
sus advanced  against  Cyrus,  crossing  the 
Halys  and  marching  through  Cappadocia 
into  Syria,  and  laying  waste  the  country  as 
he  advanced.  After  some  minor  engage- 
ments, Croesus  was  decisively  defeated  in  the 
great  battle  of  Thymbra,  in  which  the  army 
of  Croesus  is  said  to  have  amounted  to  four 
hundred  thousand  men,  and  that  of  CyruiJ 
to  one  hundred  and  ninety-six  thousand. 
This  is  the  first  pitched  battle  of  which  the 
ancient  writers  give  us  any  details.  The 
mercenaries  in  the  Lydian  army  dispersed, 
returning  to  their  respecflive  homes.  Croesus, 
with  the  remainder,  retreated  to  Sardis, 
whither  he  was  pursued  by  the  triumphant 
Persians,  who  gained  a  second  great  vicftorj', 
this  time  before  the  walls  of  the  Lydian 
capital  itself.  The  hopes  of  Crcesus  now 
completely  vanished,  and  his  capital  was 
taken  by  storm,  B.  C.  546. 

Croesus  was  taken  prisoner  by  his  con- 
queror, who  condemned  him  to  be  burned 
alive.  After  the  captive  monarch  had  been 
led  to  execution  on  the  funeral  pile,  and  as 
the  torch  was  about  to  be  applied,  Croesus 
remembered  the  admonitions  given  him  by 
the  sage  of  Athens.  Struck  with  the  truth 
of  Solon's  words,  and  overwhelmed  with 
grief  and  despair,  the  unhappy  monarch 
exclaimed :  ' '  Solon !  Solon !  Solon ! ' '  Cyrus, 
who  was  present  at  the  scene,  demanded  the 
reason  for  this  exclamation,  and  the  entire 
story  was  related  to  him.  Greatly  affected 
by  the  wisdom  of  Solon's  words,  and  pon- 
dering on  the  vicissitudes  of  human  affairs, 
the  vicflorious  Persian  king  was  moved  to 
compassion  for  his  unfortunate  captive,  and 
therefore  ordered  the  fire  to  be  extinguished 
and  Croesus  to  be  given  his  liberty. 

Upon  being  restored  to  freedom,  Croesus 
at  once  sent  to  Delphi  the  fetters  by  which 
he  had  been  confined,  with  the  design  of 
thus  reproaching  the  oracle  for  deceiving 
him  with  false  promises  of  vicflory  for  his 
arms.     The  Delphian  priests  explained  the 


3^4 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— ASIA    MINOR. 


story  of  the  mule  as  designating  Cyrus,  wlio 
had  a  double  nationality,  being  born  both  a 
Persian  and  a  Mede.  It  was  explained  that 
the  great  empire  of  which  Crcesus  was  in- 
formed that  he  would  ruin  if  he  made  war 
on  Persia  was  his  own,  as  that  empire  had 
been  great,  but  was  now  ruined;  but  Croesus 
was  not  comforted  hy  this  explanation  of 
the  Delphian  priests. 


In  consequence  of  the  o\-erthrow  of  Croe- 
sus, Lydia  ceased  to  be  an  independent  na- 
tion, and  became  a  province  of  the  great 
Medo-Persian  Empire;  and  Sardis,  the  Ly- 
dian  capital,  became  one  of  the  chief  cities 
of  that  vast  empire.  Cyrus  ever  afterward 
treated  Croesus  as  a  friend,  and  Xenophon 
tells  us  that  he  took  him  along  with  him 
wherever  he  went. 


KINGS   OF   LYDIA. 


DYNASTIES. 

KINGS. 

TIME  OF  REIGNS,  ETC. 

AtyadjE 

Ileraclidce 

Manes 

Atvs '  .    . 

Known  Kin.<;s  Before  B.  C.  1229,  According 
to  Herodotus. 

From  B.  C.  1229  to  B.  C.  724  or  698. 

f  Last    Six    Heraclide    Kings.    According   to 
/       Xauthus  and  Nicolas  of  Damascus. 

LVDUS   

Meles 

Mermnadse 

Adyattes I 

.^RDYS 

.\dvattes  II 

Meles      

Candaules     

Gyges  ...-••... 

Ardy.s 

vSadyattes     

Alyattes    

Crcesus 

Time  According  to 

HERODOTUS. 

EUSEBIUS. 

B.  C.  724-686. 

••       686-637. 
"       637-625. 
"       625-568. 
"       568-554- 

B.  C.  698-662. 
"     662-624. 
"     624-609. 
' '     609-560. 
"     560-546. 

CHAPTER    VII. 


PHCENICIA   AND    SYRIA. 


SECTION    I.— PHCENICIA    AND    ITS    PEOPLE. 


IHCENICIA  was  the  name  an- 
ciently applied  to  a  narrow 
.strip  of  territory-  bordered  on 
the  east  by  the  mountains  of 
Lebanon,  and  on  the  west  by 
the  Mediterranean  sea,  being  only  about 
twenty  miles  wide  from  east  to  west,  and 
about  one  hundred  and  t%venty  miles  long 
from  north  to  south.  Near  Sidon  the  Leba- 
non mountains  are  only  two  miles  from  the 
sea,  and  at  T>t«  the  Phoenician  plain  is  only 
five  miles  wide.  The  entire  Phoenician  plain 
was  exceedingl}-  fertile,  being  abundantly 
watered.  The  coast  abounded  with  good 
harbors,  and  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  furnished 
material  in  great  abundance  for  ship-build- 
ing. The  most  important  and  renowned  cities 
upon  the  Phoenician  coast  were  Tj-re  and 
Sidon.  Tyre — " the  daughter  of  Sidon" — 
was  the  most  southern  city,  and  the  only 
one  whose  political  history  can  be  traced. 
Sidon,  the  most  ancient  citj-  of  Phoenicia,  was 
twenty  miles  north  of  Tyre,  and  its  modem 
name  is  Saide.  Berv-tus,  now  Beyreut,  was 
sixteen  miles  north  of  Sidon,  and  is  now 
the  principal  seaport  of  Syria.  North  of 
Berytus  was  Byblus,  the  Gebal  of  the  Bible, 
inhabited  by  seamen  and  caulkers.  North 
of  Byblus  was  Tripolis,  now  called  Tarabu- 
lus;  and  the  most  northern  of  all  Phoenician 
cities  was  Aradus,  the  Ar\-ad  of  Genesis  and 
Ezekiel. 

The  Phoenicians  were  a  branch  of  the 
Semitic  race,  being  therefore  a  kindred  peo- 
ple with  the  Hebrews,  the  Arabs,  the  Syr- 
ians, the  Assyrians  and  the  later  Baby  lonians. 

a-20.-U.  H.  ( 31 


They  have  sometimes,  however,  been  con- 
sidered as  the  Canaanites  of  the  coast  and 
descendants  of  Canaan,  a  son  of  Ham;  in 
which  case  they  would  belong  to  the  Ha- 
mitic  nations,  but  their  Semitic  language 
seems  to  identify  them  with  the  other  na- 
tions classed  as  descended  from  Shem. 
The  Phoenicians  migrated  from  the  plains 
of  Chaldaea  soon  after  the  death  of  Nimrod. 
Thej'  were  never  united  under  one  govern- 
ment, being  divided  into  a  number  of  petty 
states,  or  kingdoms,  each  Phoenician  city 
with  its  adjacent  territorj-  constituting  a 
small  independent  state  with  an  hereditarj- 
sovereign  at  its  head,  the  political  power 
being  shared  with  the  priests  and  the  nobles. 
In  certain  emergencies  the  Phoenician  cities 
would  unite  in  a  confederacy,  one  of  the 
cities  being  usually  recognized  as  the  leader 
of  the  confederation.  This  supremacy  was 
onl}-  exercised  in  war,  when  a  common  dan- 
ger threatened  the  existence  of  the  separate 
cities,  or  when  a  common  interest  demanded 
unity.  Each  city  was  at  all  times  allowed 
to  manage  its  domestic  affairs  in  its  own  way. 
Sidon — who.se  name  is  the  same  as  the 
oldest  .son  of  Canaan,  a  son  of  Ham — was 
the  oldest  of  the  Phoenician  cities,  and  the 
first  which  became  wealthj'  and  powerful. 
It  early  engaged  in  commercial  enterprises 
with  other  nations,  by  land  and  sea,  and 
was  the  fir.st  to  found  colonies,  a  sj'stem 
which  afterwards  became  a  distincflive  fea- 
ture of  Phoenician  policy.  Tyre  was  the 
first  of  Sidon's  colonies.  Sidon  enjoyed  the 
supremacy  over  the  other  Phosuician  cities 
5) 


3i6 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— PHCENICIA    AND    SYRIA. 


L'lJIARS    1)1'     M-.liAN' 


until  about  B.  C.  1050,  when  the  city  was 
taken  and  destroyed  by  the  Philistines  from 
the  South  of  Palestine.  The  inhabitants 
found  refuge  in  Tyre,  which  became  the 
leading  city  of  Phoenicia,  and  so  remained 
for  seven  centuries. 

It  is  not  known  exaclly  when  Tyre  was 


founded.  The  city  originally  was  situated 
on  the  mainland,  but  in  after  years  a  new 
city  was  erected  on  an  island  about  half  a 
mile  from  the  shore.  This  insular  city  soon 
eclipsed  the  old  Tyre  in  wealth  and  splen- 
dor, and  its  name  became  a  byword  for  com- 
mercial greatness. 


SECTION    11.— HISTORY    OF    TYRE. 


:  WING  to  its  geographical  situ- 
ation and  its  sources  of  wealth, 
Phoenicia  was  a  prey  to  all  the 
great  conquerors  who  made 
Syria  their  battle-ground  in 
ancient  times.  For  these  reasons  Phoenician 
independence  was  of  short  duration,  and 
only  in  their  national  infancy  were  this  re- 
nowned commercial  people  free  from  the 
yoke  of  foreign  masters.  At  an  early  period 
Phoenicia  was  forced   to   acknowledge   the 


supremacy  of  Egypt,  and  was  successively 
reduced  to  subjecflion  under  the  Assyrians, 
the  Babylonians,  the  Medo-Persians  and  the 
Grasco-Macedonians. 

In  the  eleventh  century  before  Christ, 
Tyre  rapidly  grew  to  be  the  leading  city  and 
kingdom  of  Phoenicia.  Under  the  govern- 
ment of  its  own  kings  it  advanced  very  fast 
in  commercial  wealth  and  internal  magnifi- 
cence. The  first  known  King  of  Tyre  was 
Abibaal,    who   was    partly    contemporary 


TYRE. 


317 


■with  King  David.  On  bis  death,  about  B. 
C.  1025,  he  was  succeeded  on  the  Tj'rian 
throne  by  his  son  Hiram,  who  rei^^ncd  dur- 


He  furnished  Solomon  with  a  great  part  of 
the  materials  used  in  the  coustrudlion  of  the 
great  Jewish  Temple  at  Jerusalem,  and  w-ith 


ing  the  remainder  of  that  ceniur>-.  linani 
was  a  great  friend  of  the  illustrious  Hebrew 
monarchs,  David  and  Solomon,  with  both  of 
whom  he  entered  into  commercial  alliances. 


the  workmen  bj-  whom  that  grand  edifice 
was  erecfted.  Hiram's  reign  of  thirty-four 
years  was  a  period  of  wonderful  prosperity 
for  the  great   Phoenician   cities.  Tyre's   su- 


3i8 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— PHCENICIA    AND    SYRIA. 


premacy  being  acknowledged  throughout 
the  whole  of  Phoenicia.  The  other  Phoeni- 
cian kings,  profiting  h\  previous  experience, 
entered  into  a  close  confederation  and  rec- 
ognized the  suzeraintj-  of  the  King  of  Tyre, 
' '  the  true  and  only  monarch  of  the  nation, ' ' 
who,  in  consequence,  was  called  ' '  King  of 
the  Sidonians."  This  title  was  not  to  be 
confounded  with  that  of  the  King  of  Sidon, 
who  was  the  local  sovereign  of  the  early 
Phoenician  metropolis.  The  King  of  Tyre 
regulated  the  general  interests  of  Phoenicia, 
its  commerce  and  its  colonies,  concluded 
treaties  with  other  nations,  and  diredled  the 
fleets  and  armies  of  the  confederation.  He 
was  aided  by  deputies  from  the  other  Phoe- 
nician cities. 

On  the  death  of  Hiram,  in  B.  C.  991,  his 
son,  BaalEazar,  became  King  of  Tyre.  He 
died  after  a  reign  of  seven  years,  and  was 
succeeded  by  his  son  Abdastartus  (or  Ab- 
dastoreth),  who,  after  reigning  nine  years, 
fell  a  vi(51:im  to  a  plot  of  assassination.  A 
long  period  of  civil  wars  then  distracfted 
Tyre,  in  consequence  of  the  claims  of  a 
number  of  pretenders  who  disputed  the 
throiie  in  quick  succession.  Order  was  re- 
stored about  B.  C.  941  when  Eth-baal  (or 
Ithobalus),  the  High- Priest  of  Astarte,  slew 
the  last  pretender,  Phales,  and  seated  him- 
self on  the  throne  of  Tyre  as  King  of  the 
Sidonians.  He  gave  his  daughter  Jeze- 
bel in  marriage  to  Ahab,  King  of  Israel. 
By  her  force  of  charadler,  Jezebel  controlled 
her  imbecile  husband  and  rendered  Phoeni- 
cian influence  predominant  in  Israel  during 
Ahab's  reign.  Eth-baal  died  about  B.  C. 
909,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son  B.\de- 
ZOR,  who  reigned  six  j-ears,  dying  in  B.  C. 
903,  when  his  sou,  Matgen,  became  his 
successor. 

Matgen  died  in  B.  C.  871,  after  a  reign  of 
thirty-two  j-ears,  leaving  a  son  named  Pjg- 
malion  and  a  daughter  named  Elissar,  or 
l-'li.ssa,  but  better  known  as  Dido;  the 
daughter  being  then  thirteen  and  the  son 
eleven  years  old.  Matgen  desired  that  his 
children  .should  reign  jointly.  The  people 
wanting  a  change  in  the  aristocratic  form  of 
government,  revolted  and  proclaimed  Pyg- 


M.ALioN  king,  excluding  his  sister,  who 
married  Zicharbaal,  the  Sichaeus  of  Virgil. 
Zicharbaal  was  High-Priest  of  Melkarth, 
next  in  rank  to  the  monarch  among  the  Phoe- 
nicians, and  the  head  of  the  aristocratic 
party.  Shortly  afterward  he  was  assassin- 
ated by  order  of  Pygmalion,  whereupon 
Elissar  organized  a  conspiracy  of  the  Phoe- 
nician nobles  to  avenge  her  husband's  death 
and  to  dethrone  her  brother,  but  she  was 
foiled  in  her  design  by  the  vigilance  of  the 
popular  party.  Thereupon  the  conspirators, 
several  thousand  in  number,  seized  a  number 
of  ships  in  the  harbor  of  Tyre  and  sailed 
away  under  the  leadership  of  Elissar,  who 
was  thereafter  called  Dido,  "the  fugitive." 
They  landed  on  the  northern  coast  of  Af- 
rica and  founded  Carthage,  a  city  whose 
greatness,  glory  and  prosperity  eventually 
eclipsed  that  of  the  mother  country. 

In  consequence  of  the  migration  of  the 
aristocratic  party  from  Tyre  the  Tyrian 
king  was  thereafter  an  absolute  monarch. 
During  Pygmalion's  reign  the  Assj'rians 
under  Asshur-izir-pal  first  appeared  on  the 
Mediterranean  coast.  The  Phoenician  cities 
submitted  to  the  invaders  and  agreed  to  pay 
tribute — a  condition  of  dependence  which 
lasted  almost  a  centur>-.  Pygmalion's  reign 
ended  in  B.  C.  S24,  but  we  have  no  record 
of  anj'  Phoenician  king  until  the  middle  of 
the  next  centurj-.  The  Phoenician  cities 
were  governed  by  native  sovereigns  tribu- 
tary to  As.syria,  but  this  vassalage  did  not 
apparently  retard  the  prosperity  of  Phoe- 
nicia, or  weaken  its  maritime  power. 

The  Phoenicians  quietly  bore  the  yoke  of 
Assyrian  supremacy  until  the  middle  of  the 
eighth  centur>'  before  Christ,  when  they  be- 
came restive.  About  B.  C.  743,  another 
Hiram,  King  of  Tyre,  headed  a  Phcenician 
revolt  against  the  Assyrian  king,  Tiglath- 
Pileser  II.,  but  the  Phoenicians  were  again 
reduced  to  submission  and  tribute  when  the 
Assyrians  advanced  into  Palestine.  In  B. 
C.  727,  Phoenicia,  under  the  leadership  of 
Elul^us,  revolted  against  Shalmaneser 
IV.,  King  of  Assyria;  whereupon  the  As- 
syrian monarch  led  an  arm>-  into  the  coun- 
tr>',   occupied  Old  Tyre,  on  the  mainland, 


TYRE. 


319 


which  made  tio  opposition,  but  the  Island 
Tyre  withstood  a  siege.  Shalmaneser  was 
unable  to  assail  the  insular  city  from  the 
land  without  the  aid  of  a  fleet,  and  was 
obliged  to  content  himself  with  a  simple 
blockade  of  the  cit\-,  the  most  important 
feature  being  the  cutting  off  of  the  water  of 
the  island  city  which  had  been  supplied  by 
means  of  aqueducls  from  the  mainland. 
The  besieged  are  said  to  have  drunk  rain- 
water during  the  five  years  that  they 
held  out  against  the  besiegers.  While  the 
siege  was  in  progress  Shalmaneser  IV.  was 


to  the  Assyrians,  Tyre  emerged  from  the 
siege  greatly  exhausted.  Its  supremacy  had 
been  shaken  off  by  the  other  Phoenician 
cities,  which  had  become  tributary  to  Sargon; 
and  finally,  in  W.  C.  708,  its  flouri-shing  colony 
of  Cyprus  submitted  to  the  Assyrians.  In  15. 
C.  704,  just  after  Sennacherib  had  a.scended 
the  Assyrian  throne,  Hlulaeus  reestablished 
Tyre's  supremacy  over  Phoenicia  and  pro- 
claimed the  independence  of  the  country. 
In  B.  C.  700  Sennacherib  led  a  large  Assyr- 
ian army  into  Phoenicia,  whereupon  the 
Phoenician  cities  forsook  Tyre  and  submitted 


SIKGE  OF   TYRE   BY   THE   BABYLONl.\NS. 


hurled  from  the  Assyrian  throne  bj'  the 
usurper  Sargon,  who  continued  the  siege. 
The  other  Phoenician  cities  had  in  the 
meantime  submitted  to  the  A.ssyrians,  and 
Sargon  collecfted  a  fleet  of  sixty  ships 
from  these  cities  and  attempted  to  attack 
insular  Tyre  from  the  sea,  but  the  Tyrians 
sallied  out  with  twelve  ships  and  defeated 
and  destroyed  Sargon's  fleet.  Finallj%  after 
the  siege  had  lasted  five  years,  the  Assyrians 
relinquished  it  and  retired. 

Notwithstanding;  its  successful  resistance 


to  the  Assyrian  king.  Elulaeus  retired  to 
the  Island  Tyre,  relying  upon  his  usual  good 
fortinie,  which,  however,  deserted  him  on 
this  occasion.  Tyre  was  taken  and  IClu- 
Iseus  was  obliged  to  flee  for  safety.  Sen- 
nacherib spared  the  city,  and  made  Tubal 
(or  Ethbaal)  king,  as  his  vassal  and  tribu- 
tary. 

The  capture  of  Tyre  by  Sennacherib  put 
an  end  to  the  supremacy  which  that  city  had 
for  some  time  exerci.sed  so  oppressi\-ely  over 
the  other  Phoenician  cities.     Tyre  had  re- 


320 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— PHCENICI A    AND    SYRIA. 


tained  most  of  the  profits  of  Phoenician  com- 
merce for  herself,  and  the  other  cities  will- 
ingly aided  Sennacherib  in  reducing  her  to 
submission.  All  the  cities  of  Phoenicia  were 
now  placed  on  an  equality  as  tributaries  of 
Assyria.  Upon  the  assassination  of  Senna- 
cherib, Sidon  rebelled  against  Assyria,  and 
endeavored  to  acquire  the  supremacy  over 
Phoenicia  formerly  exercised  by  Tyre.  The 
revolt  was  mercilesslj^  punished  by  Esar- 
haddon,  who  destroyed  Sidon  about  B.  C. 
68 1  and  reduced  its  inhabitants  to  slavery. 
At  Esar-haddon's  death  the  Phoenician 
cities  cast  off  the  Assyrian  yoke,  and  allied 
themselves  with  Egypt,  the  enemy  of  As- 
syria. But  the  next  AsS3'rian  king,  Asshur- 
bani-pal,  after  reestablishing  the  Assyrian 
dominion  over  Eg3'pt,  suppressed  the  Phoe- 
nician revolt.  About  B.  C.  630,  or  B.  C.  629, 
Phoenicia  fell  a  prey  to  the  ferocious  Scyth- 
ian invaders,  who  devastated  the  open  coun- 
try, but  did  not  take  any  of  the  fortified 
cities.  The  overthrow  of  the  Assyrian  Em- 
pire in  B.  C.  625  gave  the  Phcenicians  a 
temporary  relief;  but  about  B.  C.  608  they 
submitted  to  the  yoke  of  Neko,  King  of 
Egypt.  The  Egyptian  sway  over  Phoenicia 
was  ended  by  the  defeat  of  Neko  by  Nebu- 
chadnezzar of  Babylon  at  Carchemish  in  B.  C. 
605;  and  after  a  short  respite  from  foreign 
domination,  the  Phoenician  cities  found  a 
new  master  in  the  Babylonian  king,  In  B.  C. 
598  Nebuchadnezzar  led  an  army  into  Phoe- 
nicia, quickly  reducing  the  country-,  and  be- 
sieging Tyre,  which  resisted  him  for  thirteen 
years,  at  the  end  of  which  he  took  the  city 
and  reduced  it  to  a  heap  of  ruins.  Most  of 
the  inhabitants  fled  to  their  fleet  and  sailed 
to  Carthage,  carrying  with  them  their  wealth 
and  industry,  but  a  miserable  remnant  of 


the  population  remained  in  the  city  under  a 
king  named  Baal,  whom  the  conquering 
Babylonian  monarch  had  set  up  as  his  vas- 
sal. Some  years  afterward  Uaphris,  King 
of  Egypt,  attempted  to  wrest  Phoenicia  from 
the  dominion  of  Babylon;  but  the  Phoeni- 
cians remained  loyal  to  Nebuchadnezzar, 
and,  aided  by  Cyprus,  defeated  the  Egj'p- 
tian  fleet,  which  was  manned  by  Greek  and 
Carian  mercenaries.  Uaphris  was  checked 
in  his  career  by  this  reverse,  and  after  hav- 
ing taken  and  sacked  Sidon  and  ravaged 
the  Phoenician  coast,  he  returned  to  Egypt 
with  a  vast  amount  of  spoils. 

Upon  the  subversion  of  the  Babj-lonian 
Empire,  in  B.  C.  538,  Phoenicia  passed  un- 
der the  dominion  of  the  Medo-Persian  kings. 
The  greater  portion  of  the  naval  forces  in 
the  expedition  of  Camby-ses,  King  of  Persia, 
into  Egypt  consisted  mainly  of  Phoenician 
ships  and  seamen.  Phoenicia  remained  a 
province  of  the  great  Medo-Persian  Empire 
for  two  centuries;  and  in  B.  C.  332  Tyre  was 
taken  after  a  vigorous  siege  and  destroyed 
by  Alexander  the  Great,  who  thus  put  an 
end  to  the  national  existence  of  Phoenicia, 
and  inflicfled  the  death-blow  upon  the  Medo- 
Persian  Empire  in  the  memorable  battle  of 
Arbela  the  following  j'ear.  Phoenicia  then  be- 
came a  part  of  Alexander's  vast  empire  and 
was  absorbed  in  the  dominions  of  his  suc- 
cessors, sometimes  falling  under  the  domin- 
ion of  the  Ptolemies  of  Eg>'pt  and  sometimes 
under  the  Seleucidae  of  Sj'ria.  In  the  first 
century  before  Christ  it  shared  the  fortunes 
of  Syria  in  being  swallowed  up  by  the  over- 
shadowing power  of  Rome.  It  has  ever 
since  shared  the  fortunes  of  Syria  and  Pal- 
estine, and  has  been  under  the  Turkish  do- 
minion for  almost  four  centuries. 


ALEXANDER   BEFORl':   TYRIC. 


PHOENICIAN   COMMERCE    AND    COLONIES. 


321 


SECTION   III.— PHCENICIAN   COMMERCE   AND   COLONIES. 


|ARGEIvY  because  of  the  phys- 
ical condition  of  their  country 
and  other  circumstances,  the 
Phoenicians  devoted  their  en- 
tire attention  to  manufaclures, 
commerce  and  colonization;  and  at  a  very 
earl>-  period  they  became  the  greatest  mauu- 
fadluring,  commercial,  colonizing  and  mari- 
time people  of  antiquity. 

The  rapid  growth  of  their  commerce 
placed  the  carrj-ing  trade  of  antiquity 
almost  exclusively  in  the  hands  of  the  Phce- 
nicians.  They  extended  their  trade  by 
establishing  colonies  and  trading  stations  in 
distant  lands,  and  many  of  these  became 
important  cities  in  later  times.  The  location 
of  these  colonies  indicates  to  some  degree 
the  extent  of  Phoenician  commerce,  and 
the  colonies  were  centers  from  which  ven- 
tures were  made  into  more  remote  regions. 
The  Phoenician  colonies  proceeded  from  east 
to  west  along  the  Mediterranean  coasts,  oc- 
cupying the  chief  islands.  The  island  of 
Cyprus — called  Kittim,  or  Chittim,  in  Scrip- 
ture— was  a  province,  as  well  as  a  colony,  of 
the  Tyrians;  and  vestiges  of  their  establish- 
ments on  the  island  may  yet  be  seen.  Their 
principal  settlements  on  Cyprus  were  Pa- 
phos,  Amathus,  Tamisus  and  Ammochosta. 
In  the  island  of  Rhodes  were  lalj-ssus  and 
Camarius.  In  the  vEgean  sea  the  Phoeni- 
cians had  stations  on  the  islands  of  Thera 
and  most  of  the  Cyclades,  and  also  on 
Thasos.  In  the  island  of  Sicily  were  the 
flourishing  Phoenician  colonies  of  Lilybaeum 
and  Panormus  (Mahaneth).  Their  est,ab- 
lishments  in  Sicily  and  Sardinia  were  only 
naval  stations  for  vessels  employed  in  the 
trade  with  Western  Europe,  especially  with 
Spain,  "the  Mexico  or  Peru  of  the  ancient 
world."  Spain — called  Tarshish  in  Scrip- 
ture— was  the  country  from  which  the  Tyr- 
ians had  the  most  lucrative  trade;  and 
in  that  country  they  established  on  the 
Mediterranean  the  colonies  of  Carteia  and 
Malaca  (now  Malaga),  and  beyond  the 
Pillars    of   Hercules;    (now    Straits   of    Gi- 


braltar) .several  flourishing  colonies,  such 
as  Tartcssus,  on  the  Boetis  (now  Guadal- 
quivir), and  Gades  (now  Cadiz),  on  an 
island  near  the  Spanish  coast;  the  latter 
of  which  is  said  to  be  the  oldest  town  in 
Europe.  These  colonies  soon  became  inde- 
pendent states,  Tyre  preferring  a  close  alli- 
ance with  them  to  retaining  a  political  su- 
premacy over  them.  PVom  Gades  and 
Tartessus  voyages  were  made  to  the  west 
coast  of  Africa  for  apes,  to  the  mines  of 
Cornwall  in  Britain  for  tin,  and  to  the  coasts 
of  the  North  Sea  and  the  Baltic  for  amber. 
The  principal  Phcenician  colonies  on  the 
Mediterranean  coast  in  North  Africa,  in  the 
modern  land  of  Tunis,  were  Leptis,  Hadrum- 
etum,  Utica  and  Carthage;  which  attained 
a  degree  of  splendor  not  reached  by  any 
other  Phoenician  cities,  and  eventually 
rivaled  Tyre  itself  in  wealth  and  magnifi- 
cence. The  Phoenicians  formed  commercial 
stations  along  the  coasts  of  Asia  Minor  and 
the  shores  of  the  Euxine,  or  Black  Sea,  be- 
fore the  Greeks;  thus  establishing  intercourse 
with  Thrace,  Colchis  and  Scythia.  In  the 
Persian  Gulf  the  Phoenicians  had  trading 
stations  on  the  islands  of  Tylos  and  Aradus 
(perhaps  Bahrein),  from  which  their  vessels 
descended  the  Persian  Gulf  and  traded  with 
India  and  Ceylon,  bringing  diamonds  and 
pearls  from  those  Eastern  lands.  At  the 
head  of  the  Red  Sea  they  had  a  station  at 
Elath,  or  Ezion-geber,  which  was  the  start- 
ing-point for  voyages  to  Ophir,  a  rich  coun- 
try in  the  distant  South  or  East,  believed  by 
some  to  have  been  in  the  South-west  of 
Arabia,  or  Arabia  Felix  (now  Yemen),  by 
others  to  have  been  on  the  Eastern  coast  of 
South  Africa,  in  the  modem  Sofala,  and  by 
others  still  to  have  been  on  the  peninsula  of 
Malacca,  in  the  Southern  part  of  Farther 
India.  Ophir  was  famed  for  its  gold,  which 
the  Phoenicians  brought  from  there  in  large 
quantities. 

The  land-trade  of  the  Phoenicians  was 
divided  into  three  great  branches  —  the 
Egyptian  and  Arabian;  the  Babylonian  to 


322 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— PHOLNICI A    AND    SYRIA. 


Central  Asia  and  the  far  East;  and  the 
Armenian  and  Scythian.  From  Arabia 
Felix  (Arabia  the  Happy) — now  called  Ye- 
men— caravans  brought  through  the  desert 
such  articles  as  frankincense,  myrrh,  cassia, 
gold  and  precious  stones.  Before  the  Phoe- 
nicians had  a  port  on  the  Red  Sea  they 
brought  by  way  of  Arabia  the  produdls  of 
Southern  India  and  Africa,  particularly  cin- 
namon, ivory  and  ebony.  The  Hebrew 
prophet  Ezekiel  described  this  trade.  The 
Arabian  trade  was  mainly  carried  by  cara- 


present  century. 


vans.  The  Northern  Arabs,  especially  the 
princes  of  Kedar  and  the  Midianites,  were 
great  traveling  merchants;  and  the  Kingdom 
of  Edom,  afterwards  Idumasa,  in  the  North 
of  Arabia,  reached  a  high  degree  of  com- 
mercial prosperity.  On  the  sea-coast  the 
Edomites  were  in  possession  of  the  ports  of 
Elath  and  Ezion-geber  (now  Akaba),  at  the 
head  of  the  Red  Sea;  in  the  interior  they 
had  the  metropolis  of  Petra,  whose  mag- 
nificent remains  were  disco-vered  in  the 
As  is  charadleristic  of  the 
immutable  civilization 
of  Asia,  the  commer- 
cial caravans  of  anti- 
quity resembled  those 
of  the  present  da}'. 
Merchants  traveled  in 
bands  organized  like 
an  army,  conve3-ing 
their  merchandise  on 
the  backs  of  camels, 
"the  ships  of  the  des- 
ert." They  were  es- 
corted by  armed  forces, 
sometimes  furnished 
from  home,  but  more 
frequently  consisting 
of  some  plundering 
[]  tribe,  hired  at  a  great 
-^'  price,  to  secure  the  car- 
<  avan  from  the  exac- 
^  tions  and  attacks  of 
i  other  like  marauding 
^  tribes.  Most  of  the 
PhcEuician  trade  with 
Egypt  was  overland, 
at  least  so  long  as 
Thebes  was  the  capi- 
tal and  metropolis  of 
Eg)'pt;  and  when  Mem- 
phis rose  to  preemi- 
nence an  entire  quar- 
ter of  the  city  was  as- 
signed to  the  Pliffini- 
cian  merchants,  and  the 
trade  hy  sea  to  the  Del- 
ta became  important. 
The  first  brajich  ol 
the    Phoenician    trade 


PIKr.NKIAN   ARTS    AXD    CIMUZATION. 


323 


in  the  ICast  was  with  Judaea  and  Syria.  The 
Phcenicians  depended  on  Palestine  for  their 
grain,  and  this  explains  the  cause  of  their 
close  alliance  and  friendship  with  the  He- 
brew nation  in  the  days  of  David  and  Solo- 
mon. The  most  important  branch  of  Eastern 
trade  was  through  Babylon  with  Central 
Asia.  A  considerable  portion  of  the  route 
lay  through  the  Syrian  desert;  and,  to  facil- 
itate the  passage  of  the  caravans,  two  of  the 
most  remarkable  cities  of  antiquity — Baalath 
(afterwards  Baalbec,  or  Heliopolis)  and  Tad- 
mor  (afterwards  Palmyra)  were  founded  in 
the  Syrian  desert  by  King  Solomon,  who  de- 
sired to  procure  for  his  subjecfls  a  share  in 
this  lucrative  traffic. 

The  Northern  land-trade  of  the  Phceni- 
cians is  thus  described  by  the  Hebrew  pro- 
phet Ezekiel:  "Javan,  Tubal  and  Meshech, 
they  were  thj^  merchants;  they  traded  the 
person-,  of  men  and  vessels  of  brass  in  thy 
markets.  They  of  the  house  of  Togarmah, 
traded  in  thy  fairs  with  horses  and  horsemen 
and  mules." 

But  the  Mediterranean  sea  was  the  great 
commercial  highway  of  the  Phoenicians. 
Spain  was  the  richest  country  of  the  ancient 
world  in  the  precious  metals.  The  Phoeni- 
cian colonies  reduced  the  natives  to  slavery^ 
and  forced  them  to  work  in  the  mines.    Saj^s 


the  prophet  Ezekiel:  "Tar.shish  was  thy 
merchant  by  reason  of  the  multitude  of  all 
kind  of  riches;  with  silver,  iron,  tin  and  lead, 
they  traded  in  thy  fairs."  From  Spain  the 
Phoenicians  entered  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and 
proceeded  to  the  British  Isles,  where  they 
obtained  tin  from  the  mines  of  Cornwall; 
and  probably  from  the  coasts  of  the  Baltic 
thej'  procured  amber,  which  was  considered 
more  precious  than  gold  in  ancient  times. 
From  their  trading  stations  on  the  Red  Sea 
and  the  Persian  Gulf,  the  Phoenicians  traded 
with  the  coasts  of  India  and  the  island  of 
Ceylon,  and  with  Africa.  During  the  reign 
of  Neko,  King  of  Egypt,  a  Phoenician  fleet, 
in  a  three  years'  voyage,  discovered  the  pas- 
sage around  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  re- 
turning home  by  way  of  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Mediterranean,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  his- 
tory of  Egypt. 

Concerning  the  ancient  Phcenicians,  a 
certain  writer  says:  "Though  their  voyages 
did  not  equal  in  daring  those  of  modem 
times,  yet,  when  we  consider  that  they  were 
ignorant  of  the  mariner's  compass,  and  of 
the  art  of  taking  accurate  astronomical  ob- 
servations, it  is  wonderful  to  reflect  on  the 
commercial  enterprise  of  a  people  whose 
ships  were  to  be  seen  in  the  harbors  of 
Britain  and  Ceylon." 


SECTION   IV.— PHCEXICIAN   ARTS   AND   CIVILIZATION. 


ESIDES  their  carrs'lng  trade  the 


Phoenicians  derived  great 
wealth  from  their  manufac- 
tures. The  textile  fabrics  of 
the  Sidonians,  and  the  pur- 
ple cloths  of  the  Tyrians,  were  celebrated 
from  the  most  remote  antiquitw  The 
"Tyrian  purple,"  the  chief  product  of  the 
Phoenicians,  was  a  famous  dye,  obtained 
in  minute  drops  from  two  shell-fish,  the 
hiicdmun  and  the  murcx.  This  purple  was 
of  a  dark  red-\-iolet,  of  various  shades,  ac- 
cording to  the  species  of  mussel  employed. 
Cotton,    linen    and  silk   fabrics  were    d3-ed 


with  this  hue,  but  the  most  beautiful  effects 
were  obtained  from  woolen  goods.  The  dye 
being  very  costly,  it  was  u.sed  only  for  stuffs 
of  the  best  qualit)'.  The  manufadlure  and 
use  of  this  dye  prevailed  in  all  the  Phoeni- 
cian cities.  Homer  represents  his  heroes  as 
clad  in  Sidonian  robes  dyed  with  Tyrian 
purple. 

Vegetable  dyes  of  exceeding  beautj^  and 
variety  were  also  in  use,  the  dyeing  being  al- 
ways performed  in  the  raw  materials;  and  the 
art  of  producing  shot  colors  by  using  threads 
of  various  tints  was  only  understood  by  the 
Phoenicians.      The  Phcenicians  claimed   to 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— PHCENICIA    AND    SYRIA. 


be  the  inventors  of  glass-blowing;  and, 
though  the  Eg.vptians  have  as  good  a  claim 
to  the  discovery,  the  Phoenicians  were  the 
first  to  attain  the  highest  skill  in  the  art. 
Sidon  and  Sarepta  were  the  chief  seats  of 
the  glass-manufacture.  The  sand  used  was 
procured  from  the  banks  of  the  little  river 
Belus,  near  the  promontory  of  Cannel.  Nu- 
merous specimens  of  Phoenician  glass-ware 
j-et  remain,  and  bear  witness  to  the  skillful 
workmanship  of  this  renowned  ancient  peo- 
ple. The  Phoenicians  were  likewise  skilled 
in  potterj-;  and  the  Greeks  acquired  from 
them  the  art  of  making  painted  vases,  which 
they  afterwards  carried  to  remarkable  per- 
fecflion.  They  largely  exported  potterj'  in 
exchange  for  tin  in  their  vo^^ages  to  Corn- 
wall and  the  Scilly  Isles.  The  Phoenicians 
likewise  achieved  great  skill  in  bronze-work 
and  in  jewelry.  The  .specimens  of  their 
jewelr\'  found  by  modern  explorers  testify 
to  the  wonderful  skill  and  taste  exhibited  by 
these  ancient  people  in  this  branch  of  in- 
dustry. They  were  also  celebrated  for  their 
beautiful  car\'ings  in  ivory. 

The  Phoenicians  also  displayed  some  skill 
in  agriculture.  Excellent  wines  were  pro- 
duced in  the  vicinity  of  Tyre,  Berytus  and 
Gebal,  and  also  in  the  Lebanon  mountain 
region.  Silk,  then  as  at  present,  was  an 
important  produdt.  The  fruits  of  this  region 
were  famed  for  their  excellence  and  abund- 
ance. 

It  was  once  thought  that  the  Phoenicians 
invented  letters,  but  recent  investigations 
and  discoveries  throw  considerable  doubt 
upon  this  claim.  But,  while  other  ancient 
Oriental  nations  had  ideographic  systems  of 
writing — as  for  example,  the  Egyptians — 
the  Phoenicians  had  an  alphabet  of  twenty- 
two  letters  apparently  seletfted  from  the 
charadlers  of  the  Egyptian  hieratic  writing. 
Each  letter  of  this  alphabet  invariably  repre- 
.sented  one  articulation,  and  the  Phoenicians 
seem  to  have  been  the  first  people  to  use 
such  a  system.  It  is  believed  that  the  Phoe- 
nician alphabet  was  invented  about  the  time 
of  Avaris,  one  of  the  Shepherd  Kings  of 
Egypt,  several  centuries  prior  to  the  exodus 
of  the  Israelites  from  that  country.    It  is  the 


first  real  alphabet  which  has  been  thus  far 
discovered;  and  whether  the  Phoenicians  in- 
vented letters  or  not,  they  w'ere  the  first 
people  to  use  them  in  their  proper  manner, 
as  a  system  different  from  hierogh-phic  or 
ideographic  writing.  The  Phoenicians  es- 
tablished their  alphabet  wherever  they  car- 
ried their  commercial  enterprises,  and  thus 
they  instrudled  other  nations  in  the  use  of 
letters.  As  M.  Renan  truly  asserts,  the 
alphabet  was  a  Phoenician  export. 

According  to  the  evidence  furnished  us  by 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  the  Phoenicians  were 
descended  from  Canaan,  a  son  of  Ham, 
thus  implying  that  they  were  a  Hamitic 
people;  but  they  spoke  a  purely  Semitic 
language — a  language  akin  to  that  of  the 
Hebrews,  the  Syrians,  the  Assyrians  and  the 
Semitic  Babylonians.  Says  a  certain  writer: 
"It  is  certain  that  the  Phoenician  idiom 
differed  but  slightly,  and  in  no  important 
point,  from  that  of  the  Hebrews.  The  iden- 
tity of  grammatical  forms  and  of  the  vocab- 
ulary are  so  complete  between  the  Hebrew 
and  the  Phoenician,  that  they  cannot  be 
considered  as  two  distindl  languages,  but 
merely  as  two  slightly  difiering  dialecfts  of 
the  same  language." 

The  Phoenicians  were  a  literar>-  people  at 
a  very  early  day.  Their  written  law  em- 
braced the  principles  of  their  religion  and 
their  social  and  political  systems.  They 
had  books  treating  on  religion,  agriculture 
and  the  pradlical  arts;  and  the  different 
Phoenician  cities  had  regular  archives  or 
records  in  writing,  going  back  to  very  early 
times,  and  preserved  with  wonderful  care. 
They  made  remarkable  progress  in  the  sci^ 
ences.  The  Sidonian  architedls  were  re^ 
gardcd  as  the  best  in  Syria.  In  Phoenicia, 
particularly  in  Sidon,  did  astronomj',  arith- 
metic, geometry,  navigation  and  philosophy 
flourish;  and  the  Sidonians  endeavored  to 
atone  for  the  loss  of  their  political  and  com- 
mercial supremacy  among  the  Phoenician 
cities  bj^  their  intellecflual  glory.  The  emi- 
nent charadlers  of  ancient  Plioenicia  were  the 
historian,  Sanchoniathon,  of  Tyre,  and  the 
philosopher,  Moschus,  of  Sidon;  both  of 
whom  are  said  to  have  flourished  about  the 


PHCKN/CIAN   ARTS   AND    CIVILIZA'JION. 


325 


time  of  the  Trojan  war,  in  the  twelfth  ceu- 
tnry  before  Christ. 

The  character  of  Phoenician  architec- 
ture is  shown  by  a  few  remaining  buildings. 
Its  prominent  characteristic,  in  the  words  of 
M.  Renan,  "  is  its  massive  and  imposing 
strength — a  want,  indeed,  of  finish  in  de- 
tails, but  a  general  effect  of  power  and 
grandeur.  In  short  it  is  a  monolithic  art." 
The  Phoenician  buildings  were  constructed 
of  enormous  stones,  similar  to  those  yet  to 
be  seen  in  the  lower  walls  of  the  temple  at 
Jerusalem,  which  were  built  by  Phccnician 
architects  and  masons,  and  like  those  still 
to  be  seen  in  the  sea-wall  of  the  ruins  of 
Tyre.  The  Phoenician  tombs  were  original 
in  design  and  grand  in  construction.  All 
their  edifices  seemed  intended  to  last;  and 
so  durable  have  they  been,  that,  notwith- 
standing the  hard  fate  to  which  they  have 
been  subjected,  many  monuments  of  the 
daj's  of  Phoenician  glory  remain  to  give  us 
.some  light  on  the  antiquities  of  this  famous 
race  of  merchants  and  colonizers. 

Phoenician  statuary  seems  to  be  a  min- 
gling of  the  styles  of  Egypt  and  Assyria,  the 
general  form  being  Egyptian,  while  the 
execution  is  Assj-rian.  There  were  few 
large  statues,  but  many  small  statuettes, 
some  of  which  display  remarkable  artistic 
skill,  and  are  made  of  stone,  while  others 
are  constructed  of  baked  clay  and  bronze, 
exhibiting  neither  taste  in  design  nor  ele- 
gance in  execution.  Both  kinds  of  statu- 
ettes were  designed  as  idols,  of  which  one 
or  more  were  in  ever>'  Phoenician  dwelling. 
The  first  class  were  those  belonging  to  the 
wealthy;  while  therougher  and  coarser  sort, 
made  hastily  and  cheaply,  were  those  found 
in  the  possession  of  the  poor. 

The  ancient  Egyptian  paintings  represent 
the  Phoenicians  as  having  dark,  florid  com- 
plexions, and  well-formed,  regular  features, 
approaching  the  European  cast.  They  are 
also  represented  with  blue  eyes  and  flaxen 
hair.  The  hair,  when  dressed  for  ornament, 
was  powdered  white  and  covered  with  a  net- 
work of  blue  beads,  or  a  close  cap  wound 


around  bj-  a  fillet  of  scarlet  leather,  with 
two  long  ends  hanging  down  behind,  in  the 
Egj'ptian  style. 

The  Phoenician  dress  was  usually  a  short 
cloak  or  cape  thrown  over  the  shoulders  and 
extending  to  the  elbows,  and  fastened  at  the 
waist  by  a  golden  girdle,  which,  in  some 
ca.ses,  encircled  the  body  many  times,  and 
was  tied  in  front  with  a  large  bow-knot. 
The  inner  garment  was  of  fine  linen,  con- 
fined to  the  waist  and  extending  almost 
down  to  the  feet.  The  Phoenicians  also  wore 
woolen  mantles  and  tunics,  of  fine  tex- 
ture and  edged  with  gold  lace. 

The  Egyptian  paintings  represent  the 
Sidonians  as  allies  of  the  Pharaohs  in  their 
wars  with  the  Canaanites.  The  statesmen 
and  merchants  are  represented  as  having 
long  hair  and  beards,  and  with  a  fillet 
around  the  head.  The  .soldiers  are  depicted 
with  short  hair  and  beard.  The  arms  and 
accouterments  of  the  Sidonians  were  very 
elegant.  The  helmet  was  of  silver,  with  a 
peculiar  ornament  at  the  crest,  consisting  of 
a  disk  and  two  horns  of  a  heifer,  or  of  a 
crescent.  The  breast-plate  was  al.so  of  silver, 
quilted  upon  a  white  linen  garment,  which 
was  laced  in  front  and  extended  to  the  arm- 
pits, being  held  by  shoulder-straps.  The 
shield  was  large  and  round,  and  made  of 
iron,  rimmed  and  studded  with  gold.  The 
sword  was  two-edged  and  made  of  bronze. 
The  spear  was  remarkably  long. 

It  is  believed  that  the  Hebrews  obtained 
their  ornaments  of  dress  and  their  articles 
of  domestic  luxury  from  their  Phoenician 
neighbors.  Says  the  Jewish  prophet  Isaiah: 
' '  In  that  day  the  Lord  will  take  away  the 
bra\erj'  of  their  tinkling  ornaments  about 
their  feet,  and  their  cauls,  and  their  round 
tires  like  the  moon;  the  chains,  the  brace- 
lets, and  the  mufflers;  the  bonnets,  and  the 
ornaments  of  the  legs,  and  the  head-bands, 
and  the  tablets,  and  the  ear-rings;  the  rings, 
and  nose-jewels;  the  changeable  suits  of  ap- 
parel, and  the  mantles,  and  the  wimples, 
and  the  crisping-pins;  the  glasses,  and  the 
fine  linen,  and  the  hoods,  and  the  veils." 


326 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— PHLEN/C/A    AND    SYRIA. 


SECTION    v.— PHCENICIAN    RELIGION. 


|HE  Phcenician  religion  was  a 
gross  polytheism,  and  is  but 
imperfec^tly  understood,  as 
there  is  no  sacred  book,  like 
the  Old  Testament  of  the  He- 
brews, or  like  the  Zend-Avesta  of  the  Medes 
and  Persians,  or  the  Vedas  of  the  Sanskritic 
Hindoos,  or  the  Ritual  of  the  Dead  of  the 
Egyptians,  to  spread  before  us  a  view  of  the 
system.  Neither  is  there  any  extensive 
range  of  sculptures  or  paintings  to  give  us 
an  idea  of  the  outward  aspecft  of  the  wor- 
ship, as  in  Egypt,  Assyria  and  Greece. 
Neither  has  any  ancient  writer  given  us  any 
account  of  this  religion  excepting  Philo 
Byblius,  a  Greek  writer  of  the  first  or 
second  century  after  Christ,  and  who  was  a 
native  of  Byblus.  This  author  is  quoted  by 
Eusebius  in  his  ' '  Evangelical  Preparation  ' ' 
several  centuries  later.  But  the  work  of 
Philo  Byblius  deals  exclusively  with  Phoe- 
nician cosmogony  and  mythologj^  and  thus 
gives  us  no  light  upon  the  real  characfter  of 
the  religion.  We  are  obliged  to  rely  mainly 
upon  the  notices  of  the  Phoenician  religion 
bj'  the  writers  of  portions  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, upon  incidental  allusions  by  cla.ssical 
authors,  upon  inscriptions,  upon  the  etj-mol- 
ogy  of  names,  and  upon  occasional  repre- 
sentations accompanying  inscriptions  upon 
stones  or  coins.  These  are,  however,  so 
disconnedled  and  vague  as  to  give  us  but 
scanty  and  unsatisfadtory  knowledge  of  the 
inner  nature  of  the  Phoenician  religious 
system. 

The  Phoenician  religion  evidently  was  de- 
rived from  the  same  source  from  which  the 
religions  of  Chaldsea  and  Assyria  took  their 
origin.  It  was  based  on  the  conception  of 
one  Supreme  and  Universal  Divine  Being, 
' '  whose  person  was  hardly  to  be  distin- 
gui.shed  from  the  material  world,  which  had 
emanated  from  his  substance  without  any 
distindl  aift  of  creation."  The  Universal 
Supreme  Being  was  usually  termed  Baal, 
meaning  "the  Lord."     He  represented  the 


sun,  which  was  regarded  as  the  great  agent 
of  creative  power.  He  was  divided  into 
a  number  of  secondary  divinities,  named 
Baalim,  who  emanated  from  his  substance 
and  were  .simply  personifications  of  his  var- 
ious attributes.  "The  supreme  god,  con- 
sidered as  the  progenitor  of  different  beings, 
became  Baal-Thammuz,  called  also  Adon, 
'the  Lord,'  whence  the  Grecian  Adonis. 
As  a  preserver,  he  was  Baal-Chon;  as  a 
destroyer,  Baal-Moloch;  as  presiding  over 
the  decomposition  of  those  destroyed  beings 
whence  new  life  was  again  to  spring,  Baal- 
Zebub."  Other  gods  were  El,  Elium, 
Sadyk,  Adonis,  Melkarth,  Dagon,  Eshmuu, 
Shamas  and  Kabiri. 

Each  divinity  had  his  female  principle,  or 
wife.  Each  secondary  Baal  had  a  corres- 
ponding Baalath,  representing  the  same  god 
under  a  different  aspedl.  The  female  prin- 
ciple of  the  great  god  Baal  at  Sidon  was 
Ashtoreth,  or  A.starte,  the  representative  of 
the  moon,  therefore  corresponding  to  the 
Grecian  goddess  Artemis,  or  Diana.  The 
planets  were  worshiped  under  the  generic 
title  of  Cabirim,  the  "powerful  ones."  Fire 
was  likewise  reverenced,  and  the  sun  and 
star  deities  were  emphatically  "fire  gods." 
Movers  describes  the  Phoenician  religion  as 
' '  an  apotheosis  of  the  forces  and  laws  of  na- 
ture; an  adoration  of  the  obje(5ls  in  which 
these  forces  were  seen,  and  where  they  ap- 
peared most  acflive." 

The  most  cruel  and  licentious  ceremonies 
accompanied  the  worship  of  the  Phoenician 
deities.  Children  were  burnt  alive  to  ap- 
pease the  wrath  of  Baal- Moloch;  a  custom 
carried  to  great  excess  in  Carthage.  There 
was  a  systematic  oifering  of  human  vi6fims 
as  expiatory  sacrifices  to  El  and  other  gods. 
The  reason  for  this  shocking  superstious 
custom  is  to  be  found  in  the  words  addressed 
by  Balak  to  Balaam,  as  follows:  '  'Wherewith 
shall  I  come  before  the  Lord,  and  bow  my- 
self before  the  high  God  ?  Shall  I  come 
before  Him  with  burnt  offerings,  with  calves 


PHCENICIAN    RELIGION. 


327 


of  a  year  old?  Will  the  Lord  be  jileased 
\\\\.\\  thousands  of  rams,  or  with  ten  thou- 
sands of  rivers  of  oil?  Shall  I  give  nij- 
first-born  for  my  transgression,  the  fruit  of 
ni}-  body  for  the  sin  of  my  soul?"  Philo 
Byblius  says:  "It  was  customar}-  among 
the  ancients,  in  times  of  great  calamity  and 
danger,  that  the  rulers  of  the  city  or  nation 
should  offer  up  the  best  beloved  of  their 
children,  as  an  expiatory  sacrifice  to  the 
avenging  deities;  and  these  vi(5lims  were 
slaughtered  mystically."  The  Phoenicians 
were  instru(5led  that  at  one  time  the  god 
El  himself,  under  the  pressure  of  extreme 
peril,  had  taken  his  only  son,  clad  him  in 
kingly  attire,  set  him  as  a  victim  upon  an 
altar,  and  killed  him  with  his  own  hand. 
Thereafter  it  was  the  dut}-  of  rulers  to  fol- 
low this  divine  example,  and  private  per- 
sons, when  surrounded  by  diiEculties,  might 
offer  up  their  children  to  appea,se  the  divine 
anger.  Porph\-ry  saj-s  that  "the  Phoenician 
history  was  full  of  instances,  in  which  that 
people,  when  suffering  under  great  calamity 
from  war,  or  pestilence,  or  drought,  chose 
by  public  vote  one  of  those  most  dear  to 
them,  and  sacrificed  him  to  Saturn." 

The  W'Orship  of  Ashtoreth  in  Phoenicia 
and  Syria  was  accompanied  with  licentious 
rites.  The  worship  of  the  gjeat  Nature-god- 
dess ' '  tended  to  encourage  dissoluteness  in 
the  lelations  between  the  sexes,  and  even  to 
sanctify  impurities  of  the  most  abominable 
description."  "This  religion  silenced  all 
the  best  feelings  of  human  nature,  degraded 
men's  minds  bj'  a  Superstition  alternately 
cruel  and  profligate,  and  we  may  seek  in  vain 
for  any  influence  for  good  it  could  have  ex- 
ercised on  the  nation."  The  religion  well 
illustrated  the  moral  characfter  of  the  Phoe- 
nicians, who  were  generally  insubordinate, 
but  also  ser\'ile,  gloomy  and  cruel,  corrupt 
and  fierce,  covetous  and  selfish,  vindidlive 
and  treacherous.  Being  traders  in  everj'- 
thing  they  were  devoid  of  everj'  kindly 
feeling  and  loftj-  impulse. 

The  Phoenicians  did  not  worship  images 
of  their  deities,  and  were  therefore  not  idola- 
ters, in  the  usual  acceptation  of  the  term.  In 
the  temple  of  Melkarth  at  Gades  there  was 


no  material  emblem  of  the  god  whatever, 
exceping  a  constantly-burning  fire.  In  other 
places  conical  stones,  called  ba-lvli,  were 
dedicated  to  the  different  deities,  and  were 
honored  with  a  limited  adoration,  being  con- 
sidered as  possessing  a  certain  mystic  virtue. 
These  stones  were  sometimes  replaced  by 
pillars,  which  were  ereefted  in  front  of  the 
temples  and  had  sacrifices  offered  to  thcni. 
The  pillars  were  mostly  of  wood,  though 
sometimes  of  stone  or  metal,  and  were  called 
ashcrahs,  "uprights,"  In-  the  Jews.  On 
festive  occasions  they  were  adorned  with 
boughs  of  trees,  flowers  and  ribbons,  and 
constituted  the  chief  objecft  of  a  worship  of 
a  sensual  and  debasing  nature.  An  emblem 
in  the  Assyrian  sculptures  is  regarded  as 
conveying  a  corredl  idea  of  the  usual  appear- 
ance of  these  ashcralis  at  such  times. 

Phcenician  worship  was  condudled  pub- 
licly, and  included  prai.se,  prayer  and  sacri- 
fice. Animals  were  generally  sacrificed, 
though,  as  we  have  observed,  there  were 
frequently  human  sacrifices.  The  vidtims 
were  usually  consumed  entirely  upon  the 
altars.  Libations  of  wine  were  lavishly 
poured  out  in  honor  of  the  principal  deities, 
and  incense  was  burnt  in  extravagant  pro- 
fusion. Sometimes  an  endeavor  was  made 
to  influence  the  deity  by  vociferous  and  pro- 
longed cries,  and  even  by  self-inflicted 
wounds  and  mutilation.  Festivals  were  fre- 
quently held,  particularh-  one  at  the  vernal 
equinox,  on  which  occasion  sacrifices  on  a 
large  scale  were  made,  and  vast  multitudes 
of  people  assembled  at  the  leading  temples. 

Says  Rawlinson :  ' '  Altogether  the  religion 
of  the  Phoenicians,  while  possessing  some 
redeeming  points,  as  the  absence  of  images 
and  deep  sense  of  sin  which  led  them  to 
sacrifice  what  was  nearest  and  dearest  to 
them  to  appease  the  divine  anger,  must  be 
regarded  as  one  of  the  lowest  and  most  de- 
basing of  the  forms  of  belief  and  worship 
prevalent  in  the  ancient  world,  combining 
as  it  did  impurity  with  cruelty,  the  santftion 
of  licentiousness  with  the  requirement  of 
bloody  rites,  revolting  to  the  con.science, 
and  destrudtive  of  anj-  right  apprehension 
of  the  true  idea  of  God." 


328 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— PHCENICI A    AND    SYRLA. 


SECTION    VI.— GEOGRAPHY    OF    SYRIA. 


|YRIA — at  present  a  province  of 
the  Turkish  Empire — now  em- 
braces ancient  Syria,  Palestine 
and  Phoenicia;  thus  having  an 
area  of  about  seventy-  thousand 
square  miles  and  a  population  of  two  mill- 
ions. It  is  located  between  the  Arabian 
desert  on  the  east  and  the  Mediterranean 
sea  on  the  west.  The  Greeks  regarded  Syria 
as  including  Palestine  and  Phoenicia,  but 
the  Jews  always  considered  these  three 
countries  as  distincft  from  each  other.  Aram 
was  the  Jewish  name  for  Syria.  Ancient 
Syria  proper  was  bounded  on  the  west  by 
the  Mediterranean,  on  the  north  by  Mount 
Amanus,  on  the  east  by  the  Euphrates  and 
Arabia,  and  on  the  south  by  Arabia.  Its 
principal  geographical  divisions  in  the  time 
of  the   Romans  were  Syria   proper;    Coele- 


Syria,  or  Hollow-Syria;  and  Commagene,  in 
the  North. 

The  chief  mountains  of  Syria  were  Ama- 
nus, now  Al  lyUcan;  Casius,  now  Cas;  Li- 
banus  and  Anti-Libanus,  the  Mount  Leb- 
anon of  Scripture,  whose  .summit  is  said  to  be 
perpetually  capped  with  snow.  The  princi- 
pal rivers  of  Syria  are  the  Euphrates,  the 
Orontes  and  the  Leontes.  The  small  river 
called  Eleutherus  was  anciently  said  to  be 
haunted  by  a  dragon,  whose  immense  jaws 
could  receive  a  mounted  horseman.  The 
Sabbatum  was  represented  as  ceasing  to  flow 
on  the  Sabbath.  The  Adonis,  tinged  with 
reddi.sh  sand  in  the  rain}'  .season,  was  be- 
lieved to  flow  with  blood  on  the  anniversary 
of  the  death  of  Adonis,  who  was  said  to  have 
been  killed  on  its  banks  by  a  wild  boar. 
The  palm,  the  plane-tree  and  the  cypress  are 


PUBLIC    G.\RDEN,    D.-VMASCUS. 


GEOGRAPHY    OF   SYRIA. 


3^9 


among  the  forest  trees  of  Syria.  Grapes  are 
produced  in  abundance,  as  are  also  the  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  o:rain,  and  millet.  The  cli- 
mate is  delightful.  The  animals  of  Syria 
are  those  usually  found  in  South-western 
Asia.    The  S5'rian  goat  is  remarkable  for  its 


be  the  original  .seat  of  paradise.  Antioch, 
the  Greek  capital  of  Syria,  was  celebrated 
for  its  beauty  and  magnificence.  In  the 
famous  grove  of  Daphne,  near  Antioch, 
Venus  was  worshiped  with  licentious  cere- 
monies.     Hieropolis   was   renowned  for   its 


P.\I.MVR.\.      TKIUMPH.\L    .-iRCH. 


long  hair  and  its  pendulous  ears,  the  hair 
having  been  a  valued  article  of  commerce 
for  many  centuries.  The  wolf,  the  jackal 
and  the  fo.K  are  seen  in  the  mountains. 

Damascus — the  chief  city  of  ancient,  as  of 
modem,  Syria — is  believed  by  its  people  to 


temple  of  Venus,  which  was  so  rich  that 
the  Roman  general  Crassus  was  engaged  for 
several  days  in  weighing  the  spoils  when  he 
captured  the  city.  Eme.s.sa  had  a  temple  to 
the  sun.  Other  famous  cities  of  ancient 
Syria    were   Tadmor,    in   the    desert,    later 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— PHCENICIA    AND    SYRIA. 


known  as  Pahnjra,  and  Baalbec,  the  Greek 
Heliopolis,  or  City  of  the  Sun. 

The  earhest  inhabitants  are  beheved  to 
have  been  the  Aramites,  or  Aramseans,  the 
descendants  of  Aram,  Shem's  j-oungest  son. 
Some  of  the  po.sterity  of  Hamath,  a  son  of 
Canaan,  is  also  said  to  have  dwelt  there  in 
primitive    times.       The    Hebrew  Scriptures 


The  history  of  Syria,  like  that  of  Asia 
Minor,  has  little  political  unity.  Since  its 
petty  ancient  states  have  lost  their  indepen- 
dence the  countrj'  has  been  under  the  suc- 
cessive sway  of  the  Assyriatis,  the  Babylon- 
ians, the  Medo-Persians,  the  Graeco-Mace- 
donians,  the  Romans,  the  Saracens,  the  Sel- 
juk  Turks,  the  Mongol  Tartars,  and  for  the 


P.\I^MVR.\ 


MIDDLE    CROSSING    OF   GR.^.ND    COLONNADE  ;     GR.-iNITE    MONOLITH. 


represent  primeval  Syria  as  divided  into  a 
number  of  small  kingdoms,  among  which 
were  Damascus,  Hamath,  Zobah  and  Geshur. 
S>ria  is  believed  to  be  one  of  the  earliest  in- 
habited regions  of  the  globe,  and  the  mod- 
ern Syrians  still  have  traditions  represent- 
ing their  countr}-  as  the  oldest  in  the  world. 
The  vSj'rians  were  at  first  governed  by 
numerous  petty  chiefs,  called  kings,  a  title 
which  the  ancient  writers  applied  to  every 
ruler  or  leader,  or  chief,  of  a  communitj-. 


last  four  centuries  under  the  Ottoman 
Turks.  Under  its  present  masters  the  coun- 
try has  everywhere  fallen  into  decaj-,  and 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  any  history: 
though  in  ancient  and  mediseval  times  it 
was  the  theater  of  many  important  events, 
having  witnessed  the  prowess  and  martial 
deeds  of  Sennacherib,  Nebuchadnezzar, 
Pompey,  Abu-bekir  and  Omar,  Godfrey  of 
Bouillon,  Saladin  and  Richard  the  Lion- 
hearted,  Zingis-Khan  and  Tamerlane. 


///S/VA'}-   OF   DAMASCC/S. 


331 


SECTION    VIT,— TTTSTORY    OF    DAMASCUS. 


IplREVIOUS    to   its   organization 
into   a   satrapy  of  the  Medo- 


Persian  Empire,  Syria  had 
never  been  united  under  one 
government.  During  the  pe- 
riod of  Assyrian  supremacy  the  country  was 
divided  into  no  less  than  five  leading  states. 


capital  was  Hamath  (now  Haraah);  the 
Southern  Hittites,  in  the  region  south  of 
Hamath;  and  the  Syrians  of  Damascus, 
whose  capital  was  Damascus. 

Of  all  these  pretty  states,  the  most  power- 
ful and  the  best-known  was  Syria  of  Damas- 
cus.    The  citv  of  Damascus  is  the  oldest 


'^^^fi^z 


ARAK    Ti.Ml'l.l;    AT     KXAl.UHC. 


some  of  which  were  mere  loose  confedera- 
cies. The  five  states  were  the  Northern 
Hittites,  whose  capital  was  Carchemish,  on 
the  Euphrates;  the  Patena,  on  the  Lower 
Orontes,  whose  capital  was  Kinalua;  the 
Hamathites,  on  the  Upper  Orontes,  whose 
1— 21.-U.  H. 


known  city  of  the  world,  its  existence  dating 
as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Abraham,  about 
four  thousand  years  ago.  The  kingdom  of 
Damascus  arose  in  the  twelfth  century  be- 
fore Christ,  after  the  Hebrew  king  Saul  had 
vanquished  the  King  of  Zobah,  one  of  the 


332 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— PHCENICI A    AND    SYRIA. 


GREAT   STONE   AT   BAALlilX. 


most  ancient  SjTian  kingdoms.  Hadad, 
King  of  Damascus,  assisted  Hadadezar, 
King  of  Zobah,  against  the  great  Hebrew 
king  David,  but  was  defeated  in  a  great 
battle  by  David,  who  captured  Damascus, 
Belah  and  Berothai;  and  Hadad  submitted 
to  the  supremacy  of  his  Hebrew  conqueror. 
Near  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Solomon, 
David's  illustrious  successor,  Rezon,  King 
of  Damascus,  who  had  originally  been  a 
slave,  revolted  against  the  Hebrew  rule  and 
reestablished  the  independence  of  the  king- 
dom of  Damascus.  Tab-rimmon,  King  of 
Damascus,  was  contemporary'  with  Abijah, 
King  of  Judah,  from  about  B.  C.  960  to  B. 
C.  950.  Ben-hadad  I.,  his  son  and  suc- 
cessor, was  contemporary  with  Baasha  in  Is- 
rael and  Asa  in  Judali,  about  from  B.  C.  950 
to  B.  C.  920,  and  warred  with  Baasha  and  his 
successor,  Omri.  Ben-hadad  II.,  son  and 
successor  of  Ben-hadad  I.,  was  contempo- 
rary with   Ahab,    King  of  Israel,  about  B. 


C.  goo,  and  warred  with  that  monarch.  He 
was  a  powerful  monarch,  and  had  thirty- 
two  vassal  kings  in  his  army.  He  adorned 
Damascus  with  splendid  edifices,  and  did 
much  to  advance  the  glory  of  his  king- 
dom. He  was  finally  murdered  treacherously 
by  his  servant  Hazael,  who  then  usurped 
the  throne  of  Damascus.  Hazael  was  a 
great  warrior  and  an  able  monarch,  and 
reigned  contemporaneously  with  Jehu,  King 
of  Israel,  and  Shalmaneser  II.,  the  Black 
Obeli.sk  King  of  Assyria,  about  B.  C.  850. 
He  won  several  great  vidlories  over  the 
armies  of  Israel  and  Judah,  wresting  im- 
portant territories  from  the  kings  of  both  of 
those  nations,  and  forcing  them  to  pay  him 
tribute.  He  also  seized  Elath,  on  the  Red 
Sea,  and  largelj^  advanced  the  commercial 
prosperity  of  his  dominions.  After  his 
death  the  Syrians  deified  him,  and  thus  ren- 
dered him  an  objedl  of  wonship.  Hazael's 
.son  and  successor,  Ben-hadad  III.,contem- 


HISTORY    OF   DAMASCUS. 


333 


porary  with  Jehoabaz  and  Joasli  of  Israel, 
about  B.  C.  840,  oppressed  the  Israelites, 
but  was  three  times  defeated  by  Joash,  and 
lost  the  provinces  which  his  father  had 
wrested  from  the  Israelites.  The  Syrians 
of  Damascus  were  now  for  some  time  trib- 
utary to  Jeroboam  II.,  King  of  Israel. 
They,  however,  recovered  their  indepen- 
dence amid  the  dissensions  which  prevailed 
in  Israel  upon  Jeroboam's  death.  Rezin, 
the  last  King  of  Damascus,  became  the 
ally  of  Pekah,  King  of  Israel,  against 
Ahaz,  King  of  Judah,  for  the  purpose 
of  dethroning  the  latter,  and  putting  a 
stranger   named  Tabael   on   the   throne  of 


David.  The  allied  kings  besieged  Jerusa- 
lem, but  without  success.  They,  however, 
carried  on  a  predatorj'  war  during  the  fol- 
lowing year,  and  the  Syrians  returned  to 
Damascus  with  much  valuable  booty  and 
many  captives.  Ahaz,  in  revenge,  sent  val- 
uable presents  to  Tiglath-Pileser  II.,  King 
of  Assyria,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  his 
aid  againgst  Damascus.  The  Assyrian  king 
at  once  led  an  army  into  Sj'ria,  took  Damas- 
cus and  put  Rezin  to  death.  Most  of  the 
Damascenes  were  carried  captive  to  Kir,  in 
Media,  and  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Damas- 
cus came  to  an  inglorious  end,  about  B.  C. 
732- 


KINGS   OF   DAMASCUS. 


KNOWN   KINGS. 

TIME  OF  REIGN. 

CONTEMPORARY  KINGS. 

Hadad     

About  B.  C.  1040 

"         "     1000 

"     960-950    .... 
"     950-920    .... 
"     900 

"850 

"840 

"     745-732    .... 

Da\-id  in  Israel. 

Solomon  in  Israel. 

Abijah  in  Judah. 

Baasha  in  Israel  and  Asa  in  Judah. 

Ahab  in  Israel. 

(Jehu  in  Israel  and   Shalmaueser  II. 

\      in  Assj'ria. 

Jehoahaz  in  Israel. 

Ahaz  in  Judah  and  Pekah  in  Israel. 

Rezon       

Tab-rimmon 

Ben-hadad  I 

Ben-hadad  II 

Hazaei. 

Ben-hadad  III 

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CHAPTER    Vni 


THE    HEBREW    NATION. 


SECTION    I.— THE    HEBREW    PATRIARCHS. 


^HILE  the   great   mass    of    the 
vj'    population   of    ancient    Chal- 


dsea  about  two  thousand  j-ears 
,  !^!    before  Christ  were  polj'theists, 

worshiping  the  multitudinous 
deities  of  the  Chaldasan  pantheon,  there 
was  a  small  Semitic  band  of  nomads  who 
were  pure  monotheists,  recognizing  Jehovah 
(or  Elohim)  as  the  only  God.  At  this  time 
the  leader  of  this  small  band  was  the  famous 
patriarch  Abram,  the  son  of  Terah,  and  a 
native  of  "Ur  of  the  Chaldees."  This 
patriarch  has  become  celebrated  as  the  foun- 
der of  several  Semitic  nations,  among  them 
the  Hebrews,  or  Israelites,  and  the  Arabs. 
During  the  general  migration  of  Semitic 
and  Hamitic  tribes  from  Chaldaea  after  the 
death  of  Nimrod,  Abram  with  his  father, 
Terah,  and  his  flocks  and  herds,  removed 
from  Ur  to  Haran  up  the  Euphrates. 

Says  the  Book  of  Genesis:  "And  Terah 
took  Abram  his  son,  and  Lot  the  son  of  Ha- 
ran his  son's  son,  and  Sarai  his  daughter-in- 
law,  his  son  Abram's  wife;  and  they  went 
forth  with  them  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  to 
go  into  the  land  of  Canaan;  and  they  came 
unto  Haran,  and  dwelt  there."  After  al- 
luding to  Terah's  death  in  Haran,  the  Mo- 
saic narrative  further  says:  "Now  the 
Lord  had  said  unto  Abram,-  Get  thee  out  of 
thy  countrs',  and  from  thy  kindred,  and 
from  thy  father's  house,  unto  a  land  that  I 
will  show  thee.  And  I  will  make  thee  a 
great  nation,  and  I  will  bless  thee,  and 
make  tlij'  name  great;  and  thou  shalt  be  a 
blessing.     And  I  will  bless  them  that  bless 


thee,  and  curse  them  that  curse  thee;  and 
in  thee  shall  all  families  of  the  earth  be 
bles.sed." 

Abram's  brother,  Nahor,  delighted  with 
the  beauty  and  fertility  of  the  Mesopotamian 
plain,  remained  at  Haran;  while  Abram,  after 
the  burial  of  his  father,  migrated  with  his 
flocks  and  herds,  and  with  his  wife,  Sarai, 
and  his  brother's  son,  Eot,  "and  all  the  souls 
they  had  gotten  in  Haran,"  to  the  "prom- 
ised land  of  Canaan,"  where  the  new  emi- 
grants from  Mesopotamia  received  from  the 
inhabitants  the  name  ' '  Hebrews, ' '  meaning 
' '  strangers  from  the  other  side, "  "  the  men 
who  had  crossed  the  river, "  "  the  emigrants 
from  Mesopotamia."  Journeying  through 
the  Syrian  desert  he  tarried  for  some  time  at 
Damascus,  which  was  then  an  old  city.  At 
Damascus  he  met  his  faithful  ser\^ant  Eliezer, 
whom  he  created  "steward  of  his  house." 
Thence  he  passed  on  to  the  south,  crossing 
the  Jordan  and  entering  the  ' '  Promised 
Land,"  halting  in  the  valle}'  of  Sichem,  or 
Shechem.  The  Hebrew  record  goes  on  to 
say:  "And  the  Lord  appeared  unto  Abram, 
and  said.  Unto  thy  seed  will  I  give  this  land; 
and  there  builded  he  an  altar  unto  the  Lord, 
who  appeared  unto  him. ' '  Abram  proceeded 
"unto  a  mountain  on  the  east  of  Bethel,  and 
pitched  his  tent,  having  Bethel  on  the  west, 
and  Hai  on  the  east;  and  there  he  builded 
an  altar  unto  the  Lord,  and  called  upon  the 
name  of  the  Lord." 

This  country — then  called  Canaan,  from 
one  of  Ham's  sons,  whose  descendants  had 
peopled  it,  and  afterwards  known  as  Judaea, 


(337  ) 


338 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


and  now  called  Palestine — was  inhabited  by 
many  idolatrous  tribes.  Abram  settled  in 
the  mountain  region,  where  he  was  secure 
from  the  Canaanites,  who  dwelt  in  the  more 
fertile  plains  below,  but  where  he  had  but 
scant  pasturage  for  his  cattle.  He  pushed 
on  further  southward,  but  was  driven  by  a 
famine  into  Egj'pt.  Fearing  that  the  Pha- 
raoh who  then  reigned  over  Egj'pt  would  be 
tempted  by  Sarai's  beauty  to  kill  him  to  get 
her  in  his  possession,  Abram  passed  her  off 
as  his  sister.  Thinking  that  she  was  an  un- 
married woman,  the  Egyptian  monarch  took 
her  to  his  house,  and  bestowed  wealth  and 
honors  upon  Abram  with  a  lavish  hand. 
But  says  the  Mosaic  account:  "The  Lord 
plagued  Pharaoh  and  his  house  with  great 
plagues  because  of  Sarai,  Abram's  wife. 
And  Pharoah  called  Abram,  and  said,  What 
is  this  that  thou  hast  done  unto  me?  why 
didst  thou  not  tell  me  that  she  was  thy  wife  ? 
Why  saidst  thou.  She  is  my  sister?  so  I 
might  have  taken  her  to  me  to  wife ;  now 
therefore  behold  thy  wife,  take  her,  and 
go  thy  way.  And  Pharaoh  commanded  his 
men  concerning  him;  and  they  sent  him 
away,  and  his  wife,  and  all  that  he  had." 

Thereupon  Abram  left  Egypt,  with  his 
wife  and  with  Lot,  "and  all  that  he  had," 
and  returned  to  Canaan.  ' '  And  Abram  was 
very  rich  in  cattle,  in  silver,  and  in  gold." 
Returning  to  Bethel,  near  which  he  had  be- 
fore erecfled  his  tent,  "Abram  called  on  the 
name  of  the  Lord."  "And  Lot  also,  which 
went  with  Abram,  had  flocks,  and  herds, 
and  tents."  The  land  was  not  rich  enough 
for  their  sustenance;  and  Abram  and  Lot 
here  separated,  because  "there  was  strife 
between  the  herdmen  of  Abram's  cattle  and 
the  herdmen  of  Lot's  cattle."  Abram  at 
first  remained  on  the  mountains,  while  Lot 
descended  to  the  fertile  plain  of  the  Jordan, 
near  Sodom.  Abram  then  removed  south- 
ward to  the  "oaks  of  Mamre,"  near  Hebron, 
and  that  place  thereafter  remained  his  usual 
abode. 

Shortly  afterward,  Chedorlaomer,  King 
of  Chaldaea,  who  had  built  up  the  first  great 
empire  in  Western  Asia,  invaded  the  South 
of  Canaan,  and  conquered  the  five  cities  of 


Sodom,  Gomorrah,  Admah,  Zeboiim  and 
Bela  (afterwards  called  Zoar),  which  had 
risen  in  revolt  against  him.  In  this  war 
Lot  and  all  his  cattle  were  captured  and 
carried  away  by  the  vidlorious  Chaldseans. 
But  Abram,  with  a  band  of  three  hundred 
and  eighteen  of  his  own  people  and  a  body 
of  Amorite  allies,  pursued  the  hosts  of  Che- 
dorlaomer, and  routed  them  near  Damascus, 
rescuing  Lot  and  recovering  all  the  booty 
that  they  had  taken  from  the  five  Canaanite 
cities. 

Says  the  Hebrew  record:  "After  these 
things  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  unto 
Abram  in  a  vision,  saying,  Fear  not  Abram; 
I  am  thy  shield,  and  thy  exceeding  great 
reward.  And  Abram  said.  Lord  God,  what 
wilt  thou  give  me,  seeing  I  go  childless,  and 
the  steward  of  my  house  is  this  Eliezer  of 
Damascus.  And  Abram  said.  Behold,  to 
me  thou  hast  given  no  seed;  and,  lo,  one 
born  in  my  house  is  mine  heir.  And,  be- 
hold, the  word  of  the  Lord  came  unto  him, 
saying.  This  shall  not  be  thine  heir;  but  he 
that  shall  come  forth  out  of  thine  own 
bowels  shall  be  thine  heir.  And  he  brought 
him  forth  abroad,  and  said.  Look  now 
toward  heaven,  and  tell  the  stars  if  thou  be 
able  to  number  them;  and  he  said  unto  him, 
So  shall  thy  seed  be.  And  he  believed  in 
the  Lord  and  counted  it  for  righteousness. 
And  he  said  unto  him,  I  am  the  Lord  that 
brought  thee  out  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  to 
give  thee  this  land  to  inhei-it  it.  *  *  *  * 
And  when  the  sun  was  going  down,  a  deep 
sleep  fell  upon  Abram;  and,  lo,  an  horror 
of  great  darkness  fell  upon  him.  And  he 
said  unto  Abram,  know  of  a  surety  that 
thy  seed  shall  be  a  stranger  in  a  land  that  is 
not  theirs,  and  shall  serve  them;  and  they 
shall  afflitft  them  four  hundred  years.  And 
also  that  nation,  whom  they  shall  serve, 
will  I  judge;  and  afterwards  shall  they  come 
out  with  great  substance.  And  thou  shalt 
go  to  thy  fathers  in  peace;  thou  shalt  be 
buried  in  a  good  old  age.  But  in  the  fourth 
generation  they  shall  come  hither  again; 
for  the  iniquity  of  the  Amorites  is  not  yet 
full.  And  it  came  to  pass,  that,  when  the 
sun   went  down,  and  it  was  dark,  behold  a 


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THE    PATRIARCHS. 


339 


smoking  furnace,  and  a  burning  lamp  that 
passed  between  those  pieces.  In  that  same 
day  the  Lord  made  a  covenant  with  Abram, 
sa)-ing,  Unto  thy  seed  have  I  given  this 
land,  from  the  river  of  Egypt  unto  the  great 
river,  the  river  Euphrates." 

After  sojourning  ten  years  in  the  land  of 
Canaan,  Sarai  began  to  despair  of  becom- 
ing the  mother  of  Abram's  heir  and  advised 
Abram  to  take  to  wife  her  servant  Hagar, 
an  Egyptian  woman,  by  whom  Abram  had 
a  son.  Before  the  birth  of  the  child,  Ha- 
gar, puffed  up  with  pride,  treated  her  mis- 
tress with  such  insolence  that  Sarai  felt  con- 
strained to  punish  her.  Thereupon  Hagar 
fled  into  the  wilderness  of  Kadesh,  south- 
east of  Abram's  abode.  "And  the  angel 
of  the  lyCrd  said  unto  her,  I  will  multiply 
thy  seed  exceedingly,  that  it  shall  not  be 
numbered  for  multitude.  And  the  angel  of 
the  Lord  said  unto  her.  Behold,  thou  art 
with  child,  and  shalt  bear  a  son,  and  shalt 
call  his  name  Ishmael;  because  the  lord  hath 
heard  thy  afHicflion.  And  he  will  be  a  wild 
man;  his  hand  will  be  against  ever}^  man, 
and  every  man's  hand  against  him;  he  shall 
dwell  in  the  presence  of  all  his  brethren." 
Hagar  returned  to  her  mistress  before  the 
child  was  boni,  and  Abram  named  the  child 
Ishmael.  He  is  regarded  as  the  progenitor 
of  the  Bedouin  Arabs,  who  have  always 
lived  in  a  wild  state.  Regarding  Ishmael 
as  the  heir  promised  him  by  Jehovah,  Abram 
treated  him  with  fatherly  affecflion. 

We  are  further  told  that  "when  Abram 
was  ninety  years  old  and  nine,  the  Lord  ap- 
peared to  Abram,  and  said  unto  him,  I  am 
the  Almighty  God;  walk  before  me,  and  be 
thou  perfedl.  And  I  will  make  my  cove- 
nant between  me  and  thee,  and  will  multiply 
thee  exceedingly.  And  Abram  fell  on  his 
face;  and  God  talked  with  him,  saying,  As 
for  me,  behold  my  covenant  is  with  thee, 
and  thou  shalt  be  a  father  of  many  nations. 
Neither  shall  thy  name  any  more  be  called 
Abram,  but  thy  name  shall  be  Abra- 
ham; for  a  father  of  many  nations  have  I 
made  thee.  And  I  will  make  thee  exceed- 
ing fruitful,  and  I  will  make  nations  of  thee, 
and  kings  shall  come  out  of  thee.     And  I 


will  estaljlish  my  covenant  between  me  and 
thee  and  thy  seed  after  thee  in  their  genera- 
tions for  an  everla.sting  covenant,  to  be  a 
God  unto  thee,  and  to  thy  seed  after  thee. 
And  I  will  give  unto  thee,  and  to  thy  .seed 
after  thee,  the  land  wherein  thou  art  a 
stranger,  all  the  land  of  Canaan,  for  an  ever- 
lasting possession;  and  I  will  be  their  God. 
And  God  said  unto  Abraham,  Thou  shalt 
keep  my  covenant  therefore,  thou  and  thy 
seed  after  thee  in  their  generations.  This 
is  my  covenant,  which  j'e  shall  keep,  be- 
tween me  and  you  and  thy  seed  after  thee; 
every  man-child  among  you  shall  be  cir- 
cumcised. *  *  *  *  Afi£j  Qod  said  unto 
Abraham,  As  for  Sarai  thy  wife,  thou  shalt 
not  call  her  name  Sarai,  but  Sarah  shall 
her  name  be.  And  I  will  bless  her,  and 
give  thee  a  son  also  of  her;  yea,  I  will 
bless  her  and  she  shall  be  a  mother  of 
nations;  kings  of  people  shall  be  of  her. 
H;  *  *  *  *  ^jj^  QqjJ  said,  Sarah  thj- 
wife  shall  bear  thee  a  son  indeed;  and  thou 
shalt  call  his  name  Isaac;  and  I  will  estab- 
lish my  covenant  with  him  for  an  everlast- 
ing covenant,  and  with  his  seed  after  him. 
And  as  for  Ishmael,  I  have  heard  thee;  Be- 
hold, I  have  blessed  him,  and  will  make 
him  fruitful,  and  will  multiply  him  exceed- 
ingl}';  twelve  princes  shall  he  beget,  and  I 
will  make  him  a  great  nation.  But  my  cov- 
nant  I  will  establish  with  Isaac,  which 
Sarah  shall  bear  unto  thee  at  this  set  time 
in  the  next  year.  And  he  left  off  talking 
with  him,  and  God  went  up  from  Abra- 
ham." Abraham  and  Ishmael  and  all  the 
males  of  his  hou.sehold  were  then  circum- 
cised. 

We  are  told  that  some  time  after  this, 
when  Abraham  was  sitting  at  the  door  of 
his  tent,  he  saw  three  men  approaching.  He 
at  once  arose  and  greeted  them  with  a  heartj^ 
welcome,  and  urged  them  to  remain  for 
the  night.  They  accepted  his  invitation, 
and  when  they  had  partaken  of  the  meal 
placed  before  them  they  revealed  themselves 
to  him,  one  as  the  angel  Jehovah  and  the 
other  two  as  attendant  angels.  It  is  said 
that  the  angels  renewed  to  Abraham  the 
Lord's  promise  that  Sarah  should  bear  him 


340 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.-- THE    HEBREWS. 


a  son  within  a  year;  and  that  Sarah,  who 
was  within  the  tent,  hearing  them,  and  be- 
ing ninety  years  old,  laughed  at  this  predic- 
tion; whereupon  the  angel  reproved  her  for 
her  skepticism,  and  reassured  Abraham  of 
the  Divine  promise.  The  angels,  we  are  then 
told,  went  toward  Sodom,  accompanied  part 
of  the  way  by  Abraham.  In  consideration  of 
the  favor  with  which  the  Lord  Jehovah  re- 
garded Abraham  as  the  founder  of  his  chosen 
people,  the  angels  informed  him  of  the  Di- 
vine purpose  to  destroy  Sodom  and  Gomorrah 
and  the  cities  of  the  plain  as  a  punishment 
for  their  extreme  wickedness,  and  told  him 
that  they  were  on  their  way  to  warn  Lot 
and  his  family  to  save  themselves  by  flight 
from  the  doomed  cities.  After  the  depart- 
ure of  the  angels,  we  are  told  that  Abraham 
vainly  interceded  for  the  cities;  and  that 
the  Lord,  in  response  to  the  patriarch's 
prayer,  promised  that  if  ten  righteous  men 
could  be  found  in  the  cities  he  would  spare 
them,  but  that  even  so  small  a  number 
could  not  be  found.  Lot  and  his  family,  in 
obedience  to  the  angels'  warning,  fled  from 
Sodom;  but  his  wife,  in  disregard  of  the 
warning,  looked  back,  and,  says  the  Scrip- 
tural record,  ' '  became  a  pillar  of  salt. ' '  Sod- 
om, Gomorrah,  Admah  and  Zeboiim  were 
destroyed  by  a  dreadful  convulsion  of  nature, 
not  a  single  individual  escaping  the  terrible 
doom.  Says  the  Hebrew  account:  "And 
the  Lord  rained  upon  Sodom  and  upon  Go- 
morrah brimstone  and  fire  from  the  Lord 
out  of  heaven;  and  he  overthrew  all  those 
cities,  and  all  the  plain,  and  all  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  cities,  and  that  which  grew 
upon  the  ground."  Lot  and  his  daughters 
sought  refuge  in  Zoar,  which  was  spared, 
we  are  told,  in  answer  to  his  prayer;  but 
fearing  to  remain  there.  Lot  fled  to  the  hill 
country,  and  found  refuge  in  a  cave  east  of 
the  Dead  Sea.  There  occurred  the  incestu- 
ous birth  of  Moab  and  Amnion,  the  respedl- 
ive  ancestors  of  the  Moabites  and  the  Am- 
monites, whom  Moses  and  Joshua  found  set- 
tled in  the  region  east  of  the  Jordan  and  the 
Dead  Sea. 

Soon  after  the  destrucflion  of  the  cities  of 
the  plain,  Abraham  proceeded  to  the  south, 


establishing  his  abode  in  the  tract  between 
Egypt  and  Canaan.  He  concluded  a  treaty 
with  the  king  of  the  country,  named  Abi- 
melech,  beside  a  well,  which  he  named  Beer- 
sheba  (the  Well  of  the  Oath),  in  memory 
of  the  event.  During  his  residence  at  Beer- 
sheba,  his  wife,  Sarah,  gave  birth  to  the 
long-promised  heir,  who  was  circumcised 
and  called  Isaac.  When  Isaac  was  weaned 
the  patriarch  celebrated  the  occasion  by  a 
feast,  during  which  Sarah  observed  Ishmael 
taunting  Isaac,  thus  exciting  her  anger.  She 
asked  her  husband  to  send  Hagarand  Ishmael 
away,  so  that  Isaac  might  have  no  rival  in  his 
father's  house.  Abraham  hesitated,  as  he 
had  a  paternal  affecftion  for  Ishmael.  ' '  And 
God  said  unto  Abraham,  Let  it  not  be  griev- 
ous in  thy  sight  because  of  the  lad,  and  be- 
cause of  thy  bond-woman;  in  all  that  Sarah 
hath  said  unto  thee,  harken  unto  her  voice; 
for  in  Isaac  shall  thy  .seed  be  called.  And 
also  of  the  son  of  the  bond-woman  will  I 
make  a  nation,  because  he  is  thy  seed." 
The  next  morning  Hagar  and  her  son  were 
furnished  with  provisions  and  sent  away. 
Wandering  in  the  wilderness  of  Beer-sheba, 
they  were  in  danger  of  perishing  from  thirst, 
when,  it  is  said,  they  were  rescued  bj^  an 
angel.  After  growing  up  in  the  wilderness, 
Ishmael  became  a  skillful  archer.  His  mother 
obtained  for  him  a  wife  from  her  own  peo- 
ple, the  Egyptians,  and  from  him  are  de- 
scended the  Bedouin  Arabs.  The  Koreish 
tribe,  which  inhabited  Mecca,  regarded 
themselves  as  the  direcfl  descendants  of 
Ishmael.  The  chief  sancfluary  of  this  tribe 
was  the  Caaba,  believed  by  them  to  have 
been  built  by  Ishmael  and  Abraham. 
Among  the  descendants  of  this  tribe  was 
Mohammed,  the  great  prophet  and  founder 
of  I.slam. 

Abraham  seems  to  have  lived  at  Beer- 
sheba  many  years.  During  his  residence 
there,  we  are  told,  his  faith  in  Jehovah  was 
put  to  its  severest  test.  Says  the  Scriptural 
account:  "And  it  came  to  pass  after  these 
things  that  God  did  tempt  Abraham,  and 
said  unto  him,  Abraham;  and  he  said.  Be- 
hold, here  I  am.  And  he  said,  Take  thy 
son  Isaac,  whom  thou  lovest,  and  get  thee 


THE    PATRLIKCIIS. 


341 


into  the  land  of  Moriah;  and  offer  him  for  a 
l)urnt  offering  upon  one  of  the  mountains 
which  I  will  tell  thee  of."  With  a  sad  heart, 
we  are  told  that  Abraham  obeyed  the  Divine 
command,  and  taking  Isaac  with  him  to  the 
land  of  Moriah,  which  is  believed  to  be  the 
hill  on  which  the  great  temple  at  Jerusalem 
afterwards  was  built,  he  there  built  an  altar 
and  prepared  to  offer  up  Isaac  as  a  sacrifice, 
when,  says  the  narrative,  "the  angel  of  the 
Lord  called  unto  him  out  of  heaven,  and 
said,  Abraham,  Abraham;  and  he  said, 
Here  am  I.  And  he  said,  Laj'  not  thine 
hand  upon  the  lad,  neither  do  thou  anything 
unto  him;  for  now,  I  know  that  thou  fearest 
God,  seeing  thou  hast  not  withheld  thy  son, 
thine  only  son,  from  me."  The  patriarch, 
seeing  a  ram  caught  by  its  honis  in  the 
bushes,  offered  it  as  a  sacrifice  instead  of  his 
son.  "And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  called 
unto  Abraham  out  of  heaven  the  second 
time,  and  said,  By  myself  have  I  sworn, 
saith  the  Lord;  for  because  thou  hast  done 
this  thing,  and  hast  not  withheld  thy  son, 
thine  only  son;  That  in  ble.ssing  I  will  bless 
thee,  and  in  multiplying  I  will  multiply  thy 
seed  as  the  stars  of  the  heaven,  and  as  the 
sand  which  is  upon  the  sea  shore;  and  thy 
seed  shall  pos.sess  the  gate  of  his  enemies; 
and  in  thy  seed  shall  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth  be  blessed;  because  thou  hast  obej^ed 
my  voice." 

Some  time  after  this  Abraham  returned  to 
his  old  home  at  Mamre,  near  Hebron,  where 
Sarah  died.  After  purchasing  the  cave  of 
Machpelah  from  the  Hittites  of  Hebron, 
then  called  Kirjath-Arba,  Abraham  buried 
Sarah  there;  and  the  cave  became  his  family 
sepulcher.  After  Sarah's  burial  Abraham 
returned  to  Beer-sheba.  As  he  felt  his  end 
approaching,  he  determined  to  secure  a  wife 
for  his  son  Isaac;  and,  in  order  that  Isaac's 
posterity  might  be  a  pure  race,  he  resolved 
to  .secure  one  of  his  kindred  as  a  bride  for 
his  son.  For  this  reason  he  .sent  his  stew- 
ard, Eliezer,  to  Mesopotamia,  binding  him 
by  a  solemn  oath  to  seledl  from  his  own 
family  a  wife  fOr  Isaac.  Reaching  Haran, 
Eliezer  met  the  family  of  Bethuel,  the  son 
of  Nahor,   Abraham's  brother.     He   chose 


Rebekah,  the  youngest  and  most  beautiful 
daughter  of  the  house,  who,  upon  hearing 
of  his  mission,  agreed  to  leave  her  own 
family  and  become  her  cou.sin  Isaac's  wife. 
Going  with  Eliezer  to  Canaan,  she  was 
greeted  with  joy  by  Isaac  and  his  father. 
Isaac  was  said  to  have  been  forty  years  old 
when  he  married.  After  a  marriage  of  twenty 
years  Rebekah  gave  birth  to  twin  sons — one 
called  Esau  and  also  Edom  (the  Red),  on 
account  of  his  ruddy  complexion;  the  other 
name  Jacob  (the  Supplanter). 

After  Isaac's  marriage,  Abraham  took  an- 
other wife,  named  Keturah,  by  whom  he 
had  six  sons,  one  of  whom  was  Midian,  the 
ancestor  of  the  Midianites,  who  occupied 
the  region  between  the  Dead  Sea  and  the 
Elanitic  gulf  of  the  Red  Sea,  to  the  east 
of  the  Nabsetheans.  Abraham  lavished 
gifts  upon  these  sons,  but  sent  them  out  of 
Canaan,  which  was  reserved  exclusively  as 
the  inheritance  of  Isaac,  to  whom  the  patri- 
arch bequeathed  all  his  vast  wealth.  Abra- 
ham died  at  Beer-sheba  "  in  a  good  old  age, 
and  full  of  years."  His  .sons,  Isaac  and 
Lshmael,  buried  him  in  the  family  tomb  in 
the  cave  of  Machpelah.  Thus  ended  the 
career  of  the  renowned  patriarch  who  was 
the  ancestor  of  the  Israelites,  the  Bedouin 
Arabs,  the  Edomites  and  the  Midianites. 

After  Abraham's  death  Isaac  continued  to 
dwell  by  the  well  of  Lahai-roi,  in  the  ex- 
treme South  of  Canaan,  or  Palestine,  where 
his  sons  grew  to  manhood.  Esau  was  a 
reckless  man,  an  expert  hunter,  and  his 
father's  favorite.  He  was  rough  and  hairy 
in  appearance,  and  caused  his  parents  much 
trouble.  W'hen  forty  years  old  he  married 
two  Hittite  wives,  contrary  to  his  father's 
wish;  thus  introducing  heathen  alliances 
into  the  chosen  family.  Jacob  was  peaceful 
and  prudent — ready  to  obtain  by  cunning 
and  intrigue  what  Esau  sought  to  procure 
by  violent  means.  He  was  smooth-skinned, 
and  fond  of  the  peaceful  occupation  of  the 
shepherd  and  the  quiet  life  of  the  tent. 
Jacob  was  his  mother's  favorite. 

As  Esau  came  in  one  day,  tired  and  hun- 
gry from  the  chase,  he  saw  Jacob  preparing 
a  mess   of  red   lentils,   and   asked   him  for 


342 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


"some  of  that  red."  Jacob  aSked  Esau's 
birth-right  in  payment  for  the  mess;  and 
Esau,  simply  to  gratify  his  appetite  for  the 
moment,  agreed  to  the  demand,  thus  "sell- 
ing his  birth-right  for  a  mess  of  pot- 
tage." For  this  proceeding  St  Paul  calls 
him  "  a.  pfofaitc  person,  who  for  one  mor.sel 
of  food  sold  his  birthright."  Jacob,  by  his 
craft,  became  the  head  of  the  cho-sen  family, 
and  the  progenitor  of  the  chosen  race. 

When,  in  his  old  age,  Isaac  felt  that 
his  end  was  near,  he  informed  Esau  of  his 
design  of  transmitting  to  him  the  patri- 
archal authority,  and  ordered  him  to  prepare 
a  feast  for  the  occasion.  Esau  started  to 
obtain  venison,  of  which  his  father  was  very 
fond,  whereupon  Rebekah  informed  Jacob 
of  her  husband's  intention.  With  her  help 
Jacob  craftily  passed  him.self  off  upon  his 
father  as  Esau,  thus  securing  the  patriarchal 
blessing,  which  made  him  the  head  of  his 
family,  aud  which,  when  once  given,  was 
irrevocable.  Esau  now  returned  from  the 
chase,  and  was  apprised  of  the  trick  by 
which  he  had  been  defrauded  of  his  inherit- 
ance. His  anger  and  grief  were  great. 
"He  cried  with  a  great  and  exceeding  bitter 
cry,  and  said  unto  his  father,  Bless  me,  even 
me  also,  O  my  father. ' '  The  spiritual  bles.s- 
ing,  having  passed  to  Jacob,  could  not  be 
recalled,  but  Isaac  blessed  Esau  by  promis- 
ing him  ^reat  earthly  prosperity,  qualified 
by  submisson  to  his  brother,  whose  yoke  he 
should  eventually  break.  Concerning  this 
promise.  Dr.  William  Smith,  in  his  History 
of  the  Bible,  says:  "The  prophecy  was  ful- 
filled in  the  prosperity  of  the  Idumaeans, 
their  martial  prowess,  and  their  constant  con- 
flidts  with  the  Israelites,  by  whom  they  were 
subdued  under  David,  over  whom  they 
triumphed  at  the  Babylonian  captivity,  and 
to  whom  they  at  last  gave  a  king  in  the  per- 
son of  Herod  the  Great. ' ' 

Thenceforth  Esau  was  resolved  to  kill 
Jacob,  delaying  his  design  until  after  Isaac's 
death.  Becoming  aware  of  this,  Rebekah 
induced  her  husband  to  send  Jacob  to  her 
kindred  for  safety.  Isaac  was  glad  to  do 
this,  to  procure  a  wife  of  pure  blood  for 
Jacob.     Taking  his  staff  Jacob  started  for 


Mesopotamia,  taking  the  route  by  which 
Abraham  had  entered  Canaan.  Upon  arriv- 
ing at  Abraham's  old  encampment  at  Bethel, 
he  remained  there  all  night,  taking  a  stone 
for  a  pillow.  "And  he  dreamed,  and  be- 
hold! a  ladder  set  up  on  the  earth,  and  the 
top  of  it  reached  to  heaven;  and  behold  the 
angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending  on 
it.  And  behold!  the  Lord  stood  above  it, 
and  said,  I  am  the  Lord  God  of  Abraham 
thy  father,  and  the  God  of  Isaac;  the  land 
whereon  thou  liest,  to  thee  will  I  give  it, 
and  to  thy  seed.  And  thy  seed  shall  be  as 
the  dust  of  the  earth;  and  thou  shalt  spread 
abroad  to  the  west,  and  to  the  east,  and  to 
the  north,  and  to  the  south;  and  in  thee  and 
in  thy  seed  shall  all  the  families  of  the  earth 
be  blessed.  And  behold  I  am  with  thee, 
and  will  keep  thee  in  all  places  whither  thou 
goest,  and  will  bring  thee  again  into  this 
land;  for  I  will  not  leave  thee,  until  I  have 
done  that  which  I  have  spoken  to  thee  of." 
When  Jacob  awoke  he  acknowledged  the 
Divine  presence  by  erecfting  an  altar  on  the 
spot,  which  he  named  Bethel  (the  Hou.se  of 
God),  and  solemnly  dedicated  himself  and 
all  that  Jehovah  should  give  him  to  the  .serv- 
ice of  the  Almighty.  This  was  the  turning 
point  in  Jacob's  religious  life,  and  occurred 
when  he  had  reached  a  good  age. 

Proceeding  on  his  journey,  Jacob  at 
length  reached  the  home  of  his  uncle  La- 
ban,  his  mother's  brother,  at  Padan-Aram. 
There  he  was  heartily  welcomed,  and  fell  in 
love  with  his  beautiful  cousin  Rachel,  the 
youngest  daughter  of  Laban.  Entering  his 
uncle's  ser\'ice  as  a  shepherd  for  wages,  he 
asked  of  Laban  the  hand  of  Rachel,  offering 
to  serve  him  seven  years  for  her.  Laban, 
more  crafty  than  Jacob,  accepted  this  offer, 
but,  taking  advantage  of  the  marriage  cus- 
toms of  the  country,  gave  his  eldest  daugh- 
ter, Leah,  who  suffered  with  sore  eyes,  and 
could  not  easil}'  be  disposed  of,  in  marriage 
to  his  nephew.  Jacob  was  indignant  at  the 
fraud  pratfticed  upon  him,  but  was  obliged 
to  submit,  and  consented  to  serve  Laban 
seven  years  longer  for  his  beloved  Rachel. 
In  the  progress  of  these  years  eleven  sons 
and  a  daughter  were  born  to  Jacob.     I^eah's 


THE    PATRIARCHS. 


343 


sons  were  Reuben,  Simeon,  I^vi,  Judah, 
Issacliar  and  Zebulun.  Rachacl  bore  Jacob 
one  son,  named  Joseph.  Leah  bore  him  a 
daughter,  named  Dinah.  Jacob  had  four 
sons  with  two  concubines.  Rachacl's  hand- 
maid, Billah,  Ijore  him  Dan  and  Naphtali; 
and  I^ah's  handmaid,  Zilpah,  bore  him  Gad 
and  Asher. 

After  the  birth  of  Joseph,  Jacob's  young- 
est and  favorite  child,  the  son  of  Rachel, 
Jacob  desired  to  return  to  his  own  countr\-, 
but  Laban  prevailed  upon  him  to  ser\'e  him 
longer  for  a  part  of  his  flocks,  Jacob's  por- 
tion to  be  distinguished  by  certain  marks. 
Laban  endeavored  to  defeat  this  arrange- 
ment by  trickery;  but  Jacob,  more  expert  in 
cattle-breeding,  foiled  him  and  obtained 
most  of  the  produce  of  the  flocks.  At 
length  Jacob  became  rich  in  "cattle,  and 
maidservants  and  manservants,  and  camels 
and  asses." 

After  sojourning  twenty  j-ears  with  Laban 
the  Scriptural  record  says,  ' '  the  Lord  said 
unto  Jacob,  Return  unto  the  land  of  thy 
fathers,  and  to  th}-  kindred;  and  I  will  be 
with  thee."  Fearing  that  Laban  would  de- 
tain him,  Jacob  secretly  set  out  on  his  re- 
turn to  Canaan;  and  after  crossing  the  Eu- 
phrates, he  passed  through  the  desert  by  the 
great  fountain  of  Palmyra,  traveled  across 
the  eastern  portion  of  the  plain  of  Damas- 
cus and  the  plateau  of  Bashan,  and  entered 
the  mountain  land  of  Gilead,  east  of  the  Jor- 
dan, which  constitutes  the  frontier  between 
Palestine  and  the  Syrian  desert.  There  La- 
ban with  a  considerable  force  overtook  him. 
Rachel  had  taken  along  her  father's  house- 
hold efiFecfls,  and  now,  by  an  ingenious  de- 
vice, succeeded  in  concealing  them.  ' '  And 
God  came  to  Laban  the  Syrian  in  a  dream 
by  night,  and  said  unto  him.  Take  heed 
that  thou  speak  not  to  Jacob  either  good  or 
bad."  Not  finding  his  idols,  Laban  made 
a  treaty  with  Jacob  and  set  up  a  pile  of 
stones  as  a  witness  of  it.  ' '  And  Jacob  went 
on  his  way,  and  the  angels  of  God  met  him. 
And  when  Jacob  saw  them,  he  said,  This  is 
God's  host;  and  he  called  the  name  of  that 
place  Mahanaim." 

Approaching  Mount    Seir,   of  which   his 


brother  Esau  had  become  the  powerful 
chieftain,  Jacob  was  .seriously  alarmed,  fear- 
ing that  Esau  might  kill  him  in  revenge  for 
the  loss  of  his  birthright,  and  seize  his  fam- 
ily and  flocks.  He  sent  him  a  conciliator^' 
message,  and  Esau  came  to  him  at  the  head 
of  four  hundred  warriors.  Jacob,  in  great 
alarm,  prepared  to  meet  the  peril  which 
menaced  him,  dividing  his  people  and  his 
flocks  into  two  portions.  Then  he  prayed 
to  Jehovah,  after  which  he  sent  rich  presents 
to  his  brother,  and  then  rested  for  the  night. 
He  arose  before  day  the  next  morning,  and 
sent  his  wives  and  children  over  the  Jabbok. 
remaining  behind  to  prepare  by  solitary 
meditation  for  the  day's  trials.  While  he 
tarried  ' '  a  man  ' '  made  his  appearance  and 
wrestled  with  him  until  the  break  of  day 
And  when  "the  man"  obser\-ed  "that  he 
prevailed  not  against  him,  he  touched  the 
hollow  of  his  thigh;  and  the  hollow  of 
Jacob's  thigh  was  out  of  joint  as  he  wrestled 
with  him.  And  he  said,  Let  me  go,  for  the 
day  breaketh.  And  he  said,  I  will  not  let 
thee  go,  except  thou  bless  nie.  And  he 
said  unto  him,  What  is  thy  name  ?  And  he 
said,  Jacob.  And  he  said.  Thy  name  shall 
be  called  no  more  Jacob,  but  Israel;  for  as  a 
prince  hast  thou  power  with  God  and  with 
men,  and  hast  prevailed.  And  Jacob  asked 
him  and  said,  Tell  me,  I  pray  thee,  thy 
name.  And  he  said.  Wherefore  is  it  that 
thou  dost  ask  after  my  name  ?  And  he 
blessed  him  there.  And  Jacob  called  the 
name  of  the  place  Peniel;  for  I  lia-ve  seen 
God  face  to  face,  and  my  life  is  preserved.  " 

It  is  said  that  Jacob  never  recovered  from 
the  lameness  caused  by  the  angel's  touch, 
and  in  memory  of  this  the  Israelites,  in  after 
times,  would  not  eat  of  the  sinew  in  the 
hollow  of  the  thigh. 

Descending  into  the  valley  of  the  Jabbok, 
Jacob  met  Esau,  who  gave  him  a  brotherly 
welcome.  He  had  long  before  forgiven  his 
brother  for  defrauding  him  of  the  spiritual 
blessing  which  his  father  had  designed  for 
him,  and  was  satisfied  with  the  earthly  pros- 
perity' which  he  had  achieved.  After  a 
pleasant  interview  between  the  brothers, 
Esau   returned   to    Mount   Seir.   and  Jncob 


.U4 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


proceeded  on  his  journey  to  the  Jordan, 
crossing  the  stream  at  Succoth.  Entering 
Canaan,  he  moved  on  to  Shechem,  which 
was  then  a  considerable  town  of  the  Amor- 
ites.  He  bought  a  piece  of  land  from  these 
people,  and  this  was  the  first  possession  of 
the  chosen  family  in  the  "  Promised  Land." 
There  Jacob  eredled  an  altar  to  the  ' '  God 
of  Israel,"  and  renewed  his  promise  to  serine 
Him.  He  likewise  dug  a  \vell,  which  is  yet 
.shown  there,  and  known  as  "Jacob's  well." 

Jacob  was  now  to  experience  the  greatest 
trials  of  his  life.  Shechem,  son  of  Hamor, 
prince  of  the  Shechemites,  carried  off  and 
outraged  his  daughter,  Dinah,  and  notwith- 
standing he  subsequentlj'  demanded  her  in 
marriage,  Jacob's  sons  resolved  to  avenge 
the  wrong  done  to  their  sister.  They  agreed 
to  the  marriage,  and,  throwing  the  Shechem- 
ites off  their  guard,  treacherously  attacked 
them,  killed  all  the  males,  pillaged  the  city, 
and  carried  off  the  women  and  children,  and 
likewise  the  flocks  and  herds.  Jacob  was 
intensely  indignant  at  this  treacherous  act; 
and,  in  fear  that  the  Canaanites  would  en- 
deavor to  avenge  the  massacre  of  their 
brethren,  removed  with  his  family  and  pos- 
sessions to  Bethel,  whence  he  proceeded 
southward  towards  Mamre,  where  his  father, 
Isaac,  was  yet  living.  In  the  vicinity  of 
Bethlehem  his  beloved  wife,  Rachel,  died  in 
giving  birth  to  Benjamin,  and  was  buried  at 
that  place.  Her  tomb  is  preserved  to  this 
daj\  Jacob  then  proceeded  to  Mamre  where 
he  rejoined  his  father.  It  was  some  years 
after  this  that  Isaac  died,  when  his  sons, 
Esau  and  Jacob,  buried  him  in  the  cave  of 
Machpelah.  He  died  about  thirteen  years 
after  Joseph  had  been  sold  b}'  his  brethren. 

Joseph,  Rachel's  eldest  son,  was  Jacob's 
favorite,  upon  whom  his  father  bestowed 
such  repeated  and  distinguishing  marks  of 
his  affe(5lion  as  to  excite  the  envy  of  his 
other  sons.  By  playing  the  part  of  a  spy 
upon  his  brothers,  and  informing  their 
father  of  their  misdeeds,  Joseph  won  the 
implacable  hatred  of  his  brethren.  When 
yet  a  mere  lad  he  dreamed  several  remark- 
able dreams,  which  he  regarded  as  por- 
tending   his    future   greatness    at    the    ex- 


pense of  his  bretheni,  and  he  verj'  indis- 
creetly apprised  them  of  these  dreams. 
They  at  once  resolved  to  put  him  out  of  the 
way;  and  when  Joseph  had  been  sent  by  his 
father  to  visit  his  brethren,  who  were  feeding 
their  flocks  at  Shechem,  they  determined  to 
assassinate  him.  Reuben,  the  eldest  son, 
prevailed  upon  his  brothers  not  to  kill 
Joseph  outright,  but  to  cast  him  into  a  dry 
well,  where  he  would  perish  from  hunger; 
intending  to  rescue  him  afterwards.  Thej^ 
agreed  to  this;  but  while  Reuben  was  tem- 
porarily absent,  they  sold  Joseph  to  a  cara- 
van of  Midianitish  merchants,  who  were  on 
their  journey  to  Egypt.  Returning  to  their 
father,  they  made  him  believe  that  Joseph 
had  been  killed  by  some  wild  beast. 

Joseph  was  carried  to  Egypt  by  his  pur- 
chasers, who  sold  him  as  a  bond-slave  to 
Potiphar,  or  Petephra,  an  officer  of  the 
Egyptian  army.  Winning  the  favor  of  his 
master,  Joseph  was  made  superintendent  of 
his  house.  Potiphar' s  wife  conceiving  an 
unlawful  passion  for  Joseph  and  being  re- 
pulsed by  him,  in  revenge,  brought  an  in- 
famous accusation  against  him,  causing  him 
to  be  cast  into  prison  by  his  master.  His 
good  behavior  won  for  him  the  fa-\'or  of  the 
prison  officials,  who  conferred  iipon  hini  im- 
portant duties. 

Among  the  prisoners  were  the  chief  cup- 
bearer and  the  chief  cook  of  the  reigning 
Pharaoh,  who  had  been  imprisoned  for  com- 
plicity in  a  conspiracy  at  the  court  of  the 
king.  Each  of  these  prisoners  dreamed  a 
dream  prophesying  his  fate.  Relating 
their  dreams  to  Joseph,  the  latter  interpreted 
them.  His  interpretation  was  verified,  the 
chief  cupbearer  being  pardoned  and  restored 
to  office,  and  the  chief  cook  being  executed, 
as  he  had  predidled.  The  fortunate  man 
promised  to  intercede  for  Joseph,  but  forgot 
him  for  two  years,  when  the  king,  having 
had  two  dreams  which  caused  him  much 
trouble,  and  which  the  wise  men  of  Egypt 
could  not  explain,  the  chief  cupbearer  re- 
membered Joseph  and  informed  the  Pharaoh 
of  the  Hebrew  prisoner's  interpretation  of 
his  own  dream  and  its  fulfillment.  The 
Pharaoh  thereupon  sent  for  Joseph  and  told 


TIIF.    PAI'RIARCHS. 


345 


him  of  his  dreams.  Joseph  told  him  that  his 
dreams  were  prophetic,  and  were  sent  by 
God  to  warn  him  that  Egypt  would  be 
blessed  by  seven  years  of  rich  harvests, 
which  would  be  followed  by  seven  years  of 
dreadful  famine.  He  urged  the  monarch  to 
prejiare  for  the  famine  by  gathering  stores 
of  grain  at  certain  points  in  the  country  dur- 
ing the  years  of  abundance. 

Egypt  was  then  divided  into  two  king- 
doms, Upper  Egypt  being  governed  by  a 
native  Egyptian  dyna.sty  of  Theban  princes, 
and  Lower  Egypt  being  ruled  by  those 
Canaanite  or  Hittite  conquerors  known  in 
Egyptian  history  as  the  Hyksos,  or  Shep- 
herd Kings.  These  latter  had  adopted  the 
Egyptian  customs  and  language.  The 
Pharaoh  who  sent  for  Joseph  was  one  of  this 
dynast}-,  and  was  called  Apophis,  or  Apepi. 
As  he  was  himself  of  foreign  origin,  this 
monarch  did  not  indulge  in  the  native 
Egyptian  dislike  of  foreigners.  Impressed 
with  Joseph's  interpretations  of  his  dreams, 
Apepi  at  once  declared  that  Joseph  was  the 
best  man  in  the  land  to  make  the  provision 
he  had  .suggested  against  the  famine.  He 
therefore  made  the  stranger  his  prime-min- 
ister, giving  him  his  signet-ring  in  proof  of 
the  royal  favor.  Joseph  was  clothed  in 
magnificent  apparel,  and  received  the  Egyp- 
tian name  of  Zaph-n-to,  the  ' '  Nourisher  of 
the  Country;"  while  all  .subje<5ts  were  com- 
manded to  render  him  implicit  obedience. 
He  also  received  a  bride  in  the  person  of 
Asenath,  daughter  of  Petephra,  the  High 
Priest  of  On  (afterwards  Heliopolis),  by 
whom  he  had  two  sons,  Manasseh  and  Eph- 
raim. 

Joseph  collecfted  vast  stores  of  grain  from 
the  abundant  harvest  in  public  granaries, 
which  he  constructed  for  the  purpose.  This 
he  accomplished  by  doubling  the  usual  royal 
impost  of  one-tenth  of  the  grain.  When 
the  period  of  famine  commenced  he  had 
stores  of  grain  sufficient  to  supply  the  Egyp- 
tian population,  and  to  sell  to  the  neighbor- 
ing nations  which  suffered  from  the  famine. 
He  sold  to  the  Egyptian  people  on  very  hard 
conditions,  requiring  them  to  surrender,  in 


return  for  the  food  which  saved  them  from 
starvation,  the  fee  simple  of  their  lands,  and 
to  pay  a  quitrent  of  one-fifth  of  the  produce 
for  the  right  of  occupation.  The  priests 
were  exempt  from  this  arrangement,  and  had 
the  right  to  draw  supplies  from  the  public 
stores. 

As  the  famine  reached  that  portion  of  Ca- 
naan in  w^hich  Jacob  was  living,  he  sent  his 
sons  to  Egypt  to  purchase  grain.  Thej-  did 
not  know  Joseph,  although  he  recognized 
them  at  once.  He  subjedled  them  to  a  se- 
ries of  trials,  partly  as  a  punishment  for 
their  condudt  towards  him,  and  partly  to 
.subjecT:  their  affedion  for  their  father  and 
for  their  brother  Benjamin  to  a  test;  after 
which  he  made  him.self  known  to  them,  for- 
gave them  for  the  wrongs  which  they  had 
infli(5led  upon  him,  and  brought  them  and 
their  father  into  Egypt,  where  he  would  be 
able  to  provide  for  them.  The  Pharaoh 
willingly  allowed  them  to  .settle  in  that  por- 
tion of  Eow-er  Egypt  east  of  the  Delta  known 
as  "the  land  of  Goshen."  In  this  proceeding 
the  Pharaoh  was  only  carrying  out  a  leading 
policy  of  the  Shepherd  Kings,  encouraging 
the  development  in  Egj'pt  of  a  non-Egyp- 
tian element  to  support  them  in  case  of  a 
formidable  revolt  of  the  native  Egyptian 
population. 

Jacob  died  seventeen  years  later,  blessing 
his  sons  and  declaring  that  the  posteritj-  of 
Judah  should  inherit  the  Divine  promises  to 
Abraham  and  should  rank  as  the  head  of 
the  chosen  famil}-;  Reuben,  Simeon  and 
Levi — the  three  elder  sons  of  Jacob — having 
forfeited  their  succession  by  their  crimes. 
Jacob's  body  was  embalmed  in  the  usual 
Egyptian  style,  and  was  cairied  in  great 
state  by  Joseph  and  his  brethren,  with  a 
formidable  escort  of  Egj'ptian  troops,  back 
to  Canaan,  and  was  interred  in  Abraham's 
tomb  at  Hebron.  Joseph  reached  a  vener- 
able age,  enjoying  high  honors,  and  contin- 
uing to  be  the  protedlor  of  his  family.  On 
his  death-bed  he  exacted  a  .solemn  oath  from 
his  brethren  that  his  embalmed  body  should 
be  conveyed  to  the  land  of  Canaan  when  his 
Hebrew  countrymen  should  lea\-e  Egypt. 


346 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


SECTION    IT.— THE    EXODUS    AND    WANDERINGS. 


v__^  ^|HE  real  history  of  the  Hebrew 

^/l^M'c^\  nation,  now  called  Israelites, 
only  commences  with  their 
exodus  from  Egypt.  The 
three  great  patriarchs — Abra- 
ham, Isaac  and  Jacob — and  their  posterity, 
were  simply  wandering  nomads,  roaming 
over  the  Promised  Land  of  Canaan,  but  not 
possessing  any  portion  of  it. 

The  Hebrews,  or  Israelites,  remained  in 
the  fertile  land  of  Goshen  for  over  two  cen- 
turies, and  multiplied  so  rapidly  that  the 
family  of  seventy  persons  which  had  entered 
Eg>'pt  with  Jacob  grew  to  be  a  nation  of 
almost  three  million  people.  They  consti- 
tuted a  people  distin<5l  from  the  Egyptians, 
having  their  own  language,  manners,  reli- 
gion and  patriarchal  government.  Although 
they  had  somewhat  departed  from  the  pure 
monotheism  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob, 
they  never  adopted  the  Egyptian  polytheism. 
They  were  governed  diredlly  by  their  own 
patriarchal  chiefs,  who  were  responsible  to 
the  Egyptian  king  for  the  coUedlion  of  the 
taxes  imposed  upon  the  Hebrew  colony. 

During  this  period  the  native  Egyptian 
dynasty  reigning  at  Thebes  expelled  the 
Shepherd  Kings  from  Lower  Egypt,  and 
united  all  Egypt  into  one  great  kingdom. 
This  native  dynasty  was  one  of  the  greatest 
that  ever  occupied  the  throne  of  Egypt,  and 
its  monarchs  appear  to  have  favored  the 
Hebrew  colony  in  the  land  of  Goshen. 

But  when  the  Eighteenth  Dynasty,  which 
had  driven  out  the  Shepherd  Kings,  was 
succeeded  by  the  Nineteenth  Dynasty,  the 
Egyptian  policy  toward  the  Hebrews 
changed.  This  new  dynasty  of  Pharaohs 
considered  the  Hebrews  very  dangerous  on 
account  of  their  rapid  increase  and  their 
location,  and  infli(5led  upon  them  a  series 
of  cruel  persecutions,  with  the  design  of 
weakening  their  power  and  destroying  them 
as  a  nation.  This  oppressive  policy  was  in- 
augurated by  Rameses  the  Great,  the  most 
renowned   of  Egyptian  kings,  who  was    a 


great  conqueror  and  a  heartless  tyrant.  He 
oppressed  the  Israelites  with  overwork,  and 
forced  them  to  labor  under  brutal  taskmasters 
in  building  the  treasure  cities  of  Pithom  and 
Ramses.  In  spite  of  his  cruelty  and  oppress- 
sion — in  spite  of  the  heavy  burdens  which 
he  imposed  upon  the  Hebrews — their  num- 
bers continued  to  increase  rapidly.  Alarmed 
and  enraged  at  this,  the  despotic  monarch 
ordered  all  the  Hebrew  male  children  to  be 
cast  into  the  Nile  as  soon  as  they  were  bom. 
The  female  children  were  spared  to  furnish 
wives  for  the  Egyptians.  By  this  means  the 
great  Pharaoh  expecfted  to  wholly  extermin- 
ate the  race  of  Israel. 

Amram,  a  man  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  had 
married  Jochebed,  a  woman  of  the  same 
tribe.  They  had  two  children- — a  son  named 
Aaron  and  a  daughter  named  Miriam.  Soon 
after  the  Pharaoh  had  issued  his  cruel  edidl, 
Jochebed  gave  birth  to  a  second  son,  and 
concealed  him  for  three  months  from  the 
king's  ofScers.  Not  being  able  to  hide  him 
any  longer,  she  put  him  in  a  basket,  or  ark, 
of  bulrushes,  covered  with  pitch,  and  placed 
him  among  the  flags  on  the  bank  of  the 
Nile,  where  the  infant  was  discovered  by  the 
daughter  of  the  Pharaoh,  who  had  gone 
down  to  the  river  to  bathe.  Touched  with 
pity,  the  princess  had  the  child  brought  to 
her.  She  gave  it  to  Jochebed,  who  offered 
herself  as  nurse,  and  commanded  her  to  rear 
the  boy  as  ' '  the  son  of  Pharaoh's  daughter. ' ' 
She  gave  the  child  the  name  Moses,  mean- 
ing ' '  drawn  out  of  the  water. ' '  When  the 
boy  had  grown  to  manhood  his  mother  took 
him  to  the  princess,  who  had  him  educated 
as  one  of  the  royal  family,  and  he  became 
learned  "in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyp- 
tians," and  was  instrudled  in  military  sci- 
ence. A  tradition  represents  him  when 
reaching  manhood  as  holding  an  important 
command  in  the  Egyptian  anny  in  an  expe- 
dition sent  against  Ethiopia. 

Notwithstanding  his  fortunate  lot,  and 
the  high  favor  he  enjoyed  at  court,  Moses 


MOSES. 


THE   EXODUS   AND    WANDERINGS. 


347 


felt  deeply  the  wrongs  infli(5led  upon  his 
Hebrew  countrymen.  He  reflecfted  upon 
their  suflferings,  and  often  went  among  them 
to  cheer  them.  On  one  occa.sion,  when  he 
was  forty  years  of  age,  he  killed  an  Egyp- 
tian whom  he  had  seen  cruelly  beating  a 
Hebrew.  For  thi.s  homicide  Mo.ses  was 
obliged  to  flee  from  Egypt  for  his  life.  He 
sought  refuge  in  the  peninsula  of  Sinai,  and 
at  length  found  himself  in  the  laud  of  Mid- 
ian,  where  there  was  a  tribe  ruled  by  a 
chief  and  priest  named  Jethro.  By  defend- 
ing Jethro's  daughters  from  the  violence  of 
some  shepherds  who  endeavored  to  drive 
them  away  from  a  well  where  they  were 
watering  their  flocks,  Moses  was  invited  by 
the  chief  to  come  to  his  home  and  was  urged 
to  remain  with  him.  Moses  accepted  Jethro's 
invitation  and  received  the  chiefs  daughter, 
Zipporah,  as  a  wife.  Moses  remained  with 
Jethro  manj-  5-ears,  during  which  Rameses 
the  Great  died,  and  the  Pharaoh  Menepta  as- 
cended the  throne  of  Egypt.  Menepta  pur- 
sued his  predecessor's  oppressive  policy  to- 
ward the  Hebrews.  In  their  bitter  distress 
the  Hebrews  prayed  for  the  aid  of  the  Lord 
Jehovah,  the  God  of  their  fathers. 

At  length,  Avhen  Moses  had  led  his  flock 
to  a  remote  portion  of  Mount  Horeb,  we  are 
told  that  he  was  startled  by  what  appeared 
to  be  a  burning  bush.  The  Hebrew  record 
says:  "And  the  angel  of  the  Eord  appeared 
unto  him  in  a  flame  of  fire  out  of  the  midst 
of  a  bush;  and  he  looked,  and  behold,  the 
bush  burned  with  fire,  and  the  bush  was 
not  consumed.  And  Moses  said,  I  will  now- 
turn  aside  and  see  this  great  sight,  whj-  the 
bush  is  not  burnt.  And  when  the  Lord 
saw  that  he  turned  aside  to  see,  God  called 
unto  him  out  of  the  midst  of  the  bush,  and 
said,  Moses,  Moses.  And  he  said.  Here  am  L 
And  he  said.  Draw  not  nigh  thither;  put  ofi" 
thy  shoes  from  off  thy  feet,  for  the  place 
whereon  thou  standest  is  holy  ground. 
Moreover  he  said,  I  am  the  God  of  thy 
father,  the  God  of  Abraham,  the  God  of 
Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob.  And  Moses 
hid  his  face;  for  he  was  afraid  to  look  upon 
God. 

"And  the  Lord  said,  I  have  surely  seen  the 


I  afflidlion  of  my  people,  which  are  in  Ivgypt, 
'  and  have  heard  their  cry  by  reason  of  theii 
taskmasters;  for  I  know  their  sorrows;  and 
I  am  come  down  to  deliver  them  out  of  the 
hand  of  the  Egyptians,  and  to  bring  them 
up  out  of  that  land  unto  a  good  land  and  a 
large,  unto  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey;  unto  the  place  of  the  Canaanites, 
and  the  Hittites,  and  the  Amorites,  and  the 
Perizzites,  and  the  Hivites,  and  the  Jebu- 
sites.  Now  therefore,  behold,  the  cry  of  the 
children  of  Israel  is  come  unto  me;  and  I 
have  also  seen  the  oppression  wherewith  the 
Egj'ptians  oppress  them.  Come  now  there- 
fore, and  I  will  send  thee  unto  Pharaoh,  that 
thou  ma5'est  bring  forth  my  people  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  out  of  Egypt." 

It  is  further  related  that  Jehovah  revealed 
to  Moses  his  design  of  making  him  the 
leader  and  the  divine  mouthpiece  in  this 
great  movement.  Moses  timidly  shrank  from 
this  position,  but  it  is  said  that  Jehovah 
reassured  him  and  associated  with  him 
his  brother,  Aaron,  who  was  to  be  his 
spokesman  to  the  Egyptian  king  and  to  the 
Hebrews.  The  whole  projedl  of  Jehovah  is 
said  to  have  been  revealed  to  Moses,  who 
was  commanded  to  make  it  known  to  the 
Elders  of  the  tribes.  Jehovah,  we  are 
further  told,  direcfled  Moses  to  return  to 
Egypt,  assemble  the  Elders  of  his  people, 
disclose  his  mission  to  them,  and,  after  secur- 
ing their  obedience,  to  go  before  the  Pharaoh 
and  demand  pennission  for  the  Israelites  to 
depart  from  Egypt.  Jehovah,  it  is  also  said, 
told  Moses  that  the  Pharoah  would  not  grant 
this  demand,  but  that  He  would  displaj-  His 
power  over  Egypt  and  avenge  the  suffering 
of  His  ' '  chosen  people  "  b}^  a  series  of  pun- 
ishments in  the  nature  of  plagues  such  as 
Egypt  had  never  endured  at  any  other  period 
of  its  history'. 

Moses  thereupon  started  on  his  return  to 
Egypt,  meeting  on  the  way  his  brother 
Aaron,  who  is  also  said  to  have  been  di- 
vinely dire<5led  to  look  for  him.  The  two 
brothers  returned  to  Egj'pt,  and,  summoning 
the  Elders  of  the  Israelites,  submitted  to 
them  the  message  from  Jehovah.  The  peo- 
ple consented  to  obey  the  Divine  will,  ami 


34^* 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


promised  to  faithfull}-  execute  all  the  com- 
mands of  Jehovah. 

We  are  told  that  the  Pharaoh  not  only 
contemptuously  refused  to  permit  the  Israel- 
ites to  depart,  but  increased  their  burdens. 
Moses,  it  is  said,  complained  to  Jehovah 
that  his  effort  for  their  release  only  brought 
sorrow  and  aflSicflion  upon  his  Hebrew  coun- 
trymen; but  was  encouraged  by  the  predic- 
tion that,  although  the  Pharaoh  would 
steadily  refuse  for  some  time  to  release  the 
Israelites,  and  that  he  would  steadily  in- 
crease their  hard  tasks,  y&V  Jehovah  would 
break  the  obstinate  pride  of  the  Egyptian 
king  and  force  bin:  to  agree  to  allow  the 
Hebrews  to  depart.  Moses  and  Aaron  again 
asked  repeatedly  the  Pharaoh  Menepta  to 
consent  to  the  departure  of  the  Israelites, 
but  were  as  often  refused.  We  are  further 
told  that  Jehovah  punished  the  king's  re- 
fusals by  inflidling  upon  Egypt  ten  violent 
plagues.  These  are  enumerated  as  follows: 
I.  The  waters  of  the  Nile,  the  sacred  river 
of  Egypt,  and  the  main  support  of  its  water 
supply,  became  red  like  blood  and  offen- 
sively putrid.  As  they  were  not  able  to 
use  these  waters,  the  Egyptians  were  obliged 
to  sink  wells  along  the  banks  of  the  river  to 
obtain  water  to  drink.  2.  Frogs  increased 
to  such  an  extent  as  to  become  a  dreadful 
pest  to  the  Egyptians.  3.  Swarms  of  lice 
covered  the  land,  producing  great  suffering 
alike  to  man  and  beast.  These  increased 
and  were  a  dreadful  anno5^ance  to  the  scru- 
pulou-sly-cleanly  Eg}'ptians,  and  were  like- 
wise a  religious  defilement.  4.  Clouds  of 
flies,  or  beetles,  covered  the  countr}',  swarmed 
in  the  houses,  and  devoured  the  harvest  and 
shrubberJ^  The  beetle  being  an  objedl  of 
worship  to  the  Egyptians,  they  were  thus 
scourged  through  their  own  gods.  5.  An 
epizootic  disease  appeared  among  the  cattle, 
carrying  off  great  numbers  of  them.  6.  A 
grievous  afflicftion  of  boils  and  blains  broke 
out  on  the  bodies  of  the  Egyptians  and  their 
beasts.  Dr.  Smith  says:  "This  plague 
seems  to  have  been  the  black  leprosy,  a  fear- 
ful kind  of  elephantiasis,  which  was  long 
remembered  as  the  'blotch  of  Egypt.'  It 
also  rendered  the  Egyptians  religiously  un- 


clean." 7.  A  fearful  hail  stonn,  accom- 
panied with  thunder  and  lightning,  devas- 
tated the  country,  destroying  the  crops  and 
killing  men  and  beasts.  8.  Swarms  of  locusts 
overspread  the  land,  devouring  what  the 
hail  had  left.  9.  A  remarkable  darkness  en- 
veloped the  country',  and  for  three  days  the 
people  could  not  see  each  other,  or  follow 
their  daily  pursuits.  None  of  these  visita- 
tions afHidled  the  land  of  Goshen,  the  dwell- 
ing-place of  the  Hebrews.  It  is  said  that 
the  Pharaoh,  terrified  and  humbled  by 
these  sufferings,  more  than  once  sent  for 
Moses  and  Aaron,  and  implored  them  to  in- 
duce Jehovah  to  release  the  Egyptians  from 
these  sufferings;  but  as  soon  as  one  plague 
ceased,  the  king's  obstinate  pride  returned, 
and  he  refused  to  allow  the  Israelites  to  de- 
part from  Egypt. 

The  Mosaic  record  now  tells  us  that  the 
tenth  and  most  dreadful  plague  was  sent 
upon  the  land.  It  is  said  that  Jehovah 
ordered  Moses  to  institute  the  Feast  of  the 
Passover,  which,  marking  the  commence- 
ment of  the  Hebrew  national  history,  was 
made  the  beginning  of  the  Jewish  year. 
Minute  diredtions  were  given  concerning  the 
manner  of  celebrating  the  fea.st,  no  deviation 
being  permitted  from  it,  and  the  feast  being 
made  an  annual  celebration — a  perpetual 
memorial  of  the  deliverance  of  the  Hebrew 
nation  from  the  Egyptian  bondage.  Then 
says  the  Mosaic  account:  "And  it  came  to 
pass  that  at  midnight  the  Lord  smote  all 
the  first-born  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  from  the 
first-born  of  Pharaoh  that  sat  on  his  throne 
unto  the  first-bom  of  the  captive  that  was  in 
the  dungeon ;  and  all  the  first-boni  of  cattle. 
And  Pharaoh  rose  up  in  the  night,  he  and 
all  his  servants,  and  all  the  Egyptians;  and 
there  was  a  great  cry  in  Egypt;  for  there 
was  not  a  house  where  there  was  not  one 
dead." 

Completely  subdued  in  his  haughty  spirit 
by  this  last  terrible  visitation  upon  his  sub- 
jecfts,  the  Pharaoh  Menepta  sent  for  Moses 
and  Aaron  and  urged  them  to  lead  their 
countrymen  out  of  Egj'pt  at  once.  By  or- 
der of  Moses,  the  Hebrews  asked  the  Egyp- 
tians for  jewels  of  silver  and  gold  and  rai- 


THE   EXODUS   AND    WANDERINGS. 


349 


ment,  which  ck-niaiuls  were  immediately 
complied  with.  The  ICgj'ptians  were  glad 
to  have  the  Israelites  out  of  the  country, 
fearing  that  any  further  delay  would  cause 
further  suffering. 

Under  the  leadership  of  Mo.ses,  the  He- 
brews started  upon  their  march,  taking  the 
embalmed  body  of  Joseph  along  with  them. 
They  numbered  six  hundred  thousand  men 
on  foot,  besides  women  and  children.  These, 
with  the  multitude  following  them,  and  con- 
sisting probably  of  other  Semitic  races, 
nomadic  in  their  habits,  who  were  doubtless 
glad  of  this  opportunity  to  escape  from 
Egj'pt,  swelled  the  Israelite  host  to  almost 
three  millions  of  people.  The  Mosaic  nar- 
rative saj-s:  "And  the  Lord  went  before 
them  by  day  in  a  pillar  of  a  cloud,  to  lead 
them  the  way ;  and  by  night  in  a  pillar  of 
fire,  to  give  them  light,  to  go  by  day  and 
night;  He  took  not  away  the  pillar  of  the 
cloud  by  da}-,  nor  the  pillar  of  fire  bj'  night, 
from  before  the  people. ' '  After  a  march  of 
three  days  the  Israelites  reached  the  head  of 
the  Red  Sea,  or  Gulf  of  Suez,  which  then 
extended  much  farther  north  than  at  present. 

Meanwhile  the  Pharaoh  Menepta,  regret- 
ting that  he  had  allowed  the  Israelites  to  de- 
part from  Eg^'pt,  pursued  them  with  a  vast 
host,  and  came  up  with  them  as  they  were 
encamped  near  the  Red  Sea.  Says  the 
Mosaic  account:  "And  Moses  stretched  out 
his  hand  over  the  sea;  and  the  Lord  caused 
the  sea  to  go  back  by  a  stroug  east  wind  all 
that  night,  and  made  the  sea  dry  land,  and 
the  waters  were  divided.  And  the  children 
of  Israel  went  into  the  midst  of  the  sea  upon 
the  dry  ground;  and  the  waters  were  a  wall 
unto  them  on  their  right  hand,  and  on  their 
left.  And  the  Egyptians  pursued,  and  went 
in  after  them  to  the  midst  of  the  sea,  even 
all  Pharaoh's  horses,  his  chariots  and  his 
horsemen.  And  it  came  to  pass,  that  in  the 
morning  watch  the  Lord  looked  unto  the 
host  of  the  Egyptians,  through  the  pillar  of 
fire  and  of  the  cloud,  and  troubled  the  host 
of  the  EgA'ptians.  And  took  off  their  char- 
iot wheels,  that  they  drave  them  heavily;  so 
that  the  Egyptians  said,  Let  us  flee  from  the 
face  of  Israel;  for  the  Lord  fighteth  for  them 
1-22.-U.  H. 


against  the  Egyptians.  And  the  Lord  said 
unto  Moses,  Stretch  out  thine  hand  over  the 
sea,  that  the  waters  maj-  come  again  upon 
the  Egyptians,  upon  their  chariots,  and 
upon  their  horsemen.  And  Moses  stretched 
forth  his  hand  over  the  sea,  and  the  sea 
returned  to  his  strength  when  the  morning 
appeared;  and  the  Egyptians  fled  against 
it;  and  the  Lord  overthrew  the  Egyptians 
in  the  midst  of  the  sea.  And  the  waters  re- 
turned, and  covered  the  chariots,  and  the 
horsemen,  and  all  the  host  of  Pharaoh  that 
came  into  the  sea  after  them;  there  remained 
not  so  much  as  one  of  them.  But  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  walked  upon  dry  land  in  the 
midst  of  the  sea;  and  the  waters  were  a  wall 
unto  them  on  their  right  hand,  and  on  their 
left.  Thus  the  Lord  saved  Israel  that  day 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  Egyptians;  and 
Israel  saw  the  Egyptians  dead  upon  the  sea- 
shore. And  Israel  saw  that  great  work 
which  the  Lord  did  upon  the  Egyptians; 
and  the  people  feared  the  Lord,  and  believed 
the  Lord  and  his  .sen-ant  Moses." 

In  accordance  with  the  chronology-  fixed 
upon  by  English  Egyptologists  the  Exodus 
must  have  occurred  about  B.  C.  1320. 
Among  the  various  dates  assigned  to  this 
great  event  in  Jewish  national  historj-  are 
the  years  B.  C.  1652  and  B.  C.  1491. 

After  reaching  the  eastern  shore  of  the 
Red  Sea,  the  Israelites  proceeded  down  the 
peninsula  of  Sinai  towards  the  mountain 
peak  of  the  same  name,  instead  of  going 
direcflly  to  the  Promised  Land.  For  forty 
years,  we  are  told  in  the  Mosaic  account, 
did  the  Israelites  wander  in  the  "Wilder- 
ness" in  the  desert  region  of  North-western 
Arabia.  We  are  also  told  that  Jehovah  pro- 
vided for  the  temporal  wants  of  his  chosen 
people,  sweetening  the  bitter  waters  of  the 
region  through  which  they  passed,  making 
water  gush  forth  from  a  rock  to  appease 
their  thirst,  and  sending  them  food,  first  in 
the  shape  of  quails,  and  aftenvard  in  the 
form  of  manna,  the  latter  falling  with  the 
dew  every  morning  in  the  camp.  Only  a 
day's  supply  of  manna  is  said  to  have  been 
allowed  to  be  gathered,  except  on  the  sixth 
day,  when  a  suflicient  quantity  was  gathered 


350 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


to  last  two  days,  so  that  the  people  could 
scrupulously  obsen^ei  the  Sabbath.  This 
heavenly  supply  is  ^id  to  have  continued 
every  day  during  the  forty  years'  ' '  Wander- 
ings in  the  Wilderness. ' ' 

When  they  arrived  at  Rephidim,  believed 
to  be  the  Wady-Feiran  of  the  present  day, 
the  Israelites  were  attacked  by  the  Amale- 
kites,  who  endeavored  to  stay  their  advance 
into  the  Sinaitic  peninsula.  The  Hebrew 
army  led  by  Joshua,  the  future  conqueror 
of  Canaan,  gained  the  vic5tory.  The  Israel- 
ites then  moved  on  to  Mount  Sinai,  and 
encamped  in  the  plain  and  in  the  ravines 
in  the  vicinity  of  that  con.secrated  mountain. 
We  are  now  told  that  Jehovah  descended 
upon  Mount  Sinai,  and  amid  thunder  and 
lightning  delivered  the  law  to  the  Hebrew 
nation.  The  Mosaic  account  says  that 
Moses  was  called  up  into  the  mountain  by 
Jehovah,  and  that  the  people  promised  obedi- 
ence to  His  Ten  Commandments.  Says  the 
narrative:  ' '  Then  went  up  Moses,  and  Aaron, 
and  Nadab,  and  Abihu,  and  seventy  of  the 
Elders  of  Israel;  and  they  saw  the  God 
of   Israel.  =i=         *  *  *         And 

the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  Come  up  to 
me  into  the  mount,  and  be  there;  and  I 
will  give  thee  tables  of  stone,  and  a  law,  and 
commandments  which  I  have  written;  that 
thou  mayest  teach  them.  And  Moses  rose 
up,  and  his  minister  Joshua ;  and  Moses 
went  up  into  the  mount  of  God.      *      * 

*  *  And  Moses  went  up  into  the 
mount,  and  a  cloud  covered  the  mount. 
And  the  glory  of  the  Lord  abode  upon 
Mount  Sinai,  and  the  cloud  covered  it  six 
days;  and  the  seventh  day  he  called  unto 
Moses  out  of  the  midst  of  the  cloud.  And 
the  sight  of  the  glory  of  the  Lord  was  like 
devouring  fire  on  the  top  of  the  mount  in 
the  eyes  of  the  children  of  Israel.  And 
Moses  went  into  the  midst  of  the  cloud,  and 
gat  him  up  into  the  mount;  and  Moses  was 
in  the  mount  forty  days  and  forty  nights." 
During  this  time  we  are  informed  that 
Jehovah  revealed  to  Moses  minute  diredtions 
afterwards  embodied  in  the  ' '  Laws  of 
Moses,"  which  constituted  the  civil  and  re- 
ligious systems  of  the  Hebrew  nation.     The 


Mosaic  record  says  that  the  Ten  Command- 
ments were  engraven  on  tablets  of  stone  by 
the  hand  of  Jehovah  himself 

The  Decalogue,  or  Ten  Commandments, 
and  the  other  Laws  of  Moses  were  preserved 
in  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant.  The  affairs  of 
religion  were  conducfled  by  the  High  Priest 
and  Levites.  vSacrifices  of  animals,  and  the 
feasts  of  the  Passover,  the  Pentecost  and 
the  Tabernacles,  formed  the  bond  between 
Jehovah  and  His  "chosen  people."  Every 
fiftieth  year — the  j'ear  of  Jubilee — a  new 
and  equal  distribution  of  the  lands  was 
made.  The  civil  government  established  by- 
Moses  for  the  Hebrew  nation  was  a  theo- 
cratic system,  and  the  Elders  of  the  Twelve 
Tribes  of  Israel  condudled  the  government 
in  Jehovah's  name. 

During  the  long  absence  of  Mo.ses  on 
Mount  Sinai  the  Israelites,  in  disregard  of 
their  covenant  with  Jehovah,  we  are  told, 
compelled  Aaron  to  make  a  golden  calf,  in 
imitation  of  the  Egyptian  bull-deity  Apis. 
They  abandoned  themselves  to  the  worship 
of  this  idol;  and  Moses,  upon  returning  to 
them  from  the  mountain,  found  them  thus 
occupied.  Overcome  with  anger,  he  rallied 
the  tribe  of  Levi,  and  attacked  the  idolaters 
with  the  sword,  killing  three  thousand  of 
them  and  destroying  the  idol.  The  people 
acknowledged  the  justice  of  their  punish- 
ment, and  promised  to  shun  idolatry  in  the 
future.  In  consequence  of  their  loyalty  to 
Jehovah  on  this  occasion,  the  Levites  were 
constituted  the  sacerdotal  class  of  the  Israel- 
iti.sh  nation. 

The  Israelites  sojourned  on  Mount  Sinai 
eleven  months  and  twenty  days,  during 
which  the  second  celebration  of  the  Pass- 
over was  held.  This  long  halt  was  a  busy 
season  in  the  life  of  the  nation.  The  He- 
brews had  arrived  at  Sinai  without  discipline, 
without  institutions,  without  laws,  almost 
ignorant  of  their  God,  and  with  no  estab- 
lished form  of  religious  worship.  During 
the  stay  at  Sinai  this  disorganized  mob  was 
converted  into  a  compatfl  and  powerful 
nation,  with  a  code  of  laws  which  has  ever 
since  won  the  admiration  of  all  ages  and  of 
all  nations,    and    which  remained  in  force 


THE    EXODUS   AND    WANDERINGS. 


351 


among  the  Hebrews  until  the  end  of  their 
national  career. 

The  Tabernacle,  or  sacred  tent,  was  con- 
structed in  accordance  with  the  mode  pre- 
scribed by  God,  and  all  the  particulars  of 
the  religious  ceremonial  were  minutely  ar- 
ranged. The  priesthood  was  organized, 
and  the  succession  to  the  sacred  offices 
were  definitely  provided  for.  The  prin- 
ciple at  the  basis  of  the  whole  civil  and 
religious  system  was  the  supreme  author- 
ity of  Jehovah  over  the  Hebrew  nation. 
"He  was,  in  a  literal  sense  of  the  word, 
their  sovereign,  and  all  other  authority,  both 
in  political  and  civil  affairs,  was  subordi- 
nate to  the  continual  acknowledgment 
of  His  own.  The  other  powers  were  insti- 
tuted by  God  to  administer  affairs  in  accord- 
ance with  His  laws,  but  were  not  ordinarily 
chosen  among  the  priests,  descendants  of 
Aaron,  nor  from  the  tribe  of  Levi,  consecra- 
ted to  the  various  funcliions  of  public  worship. 
Each  tribe  had  its  civil  authorities,  although 
certain  causes  were  reser\'ed  for  the  supreme 
central  tribunal;  but  the  unity  of  the  nation 
was,  above  all,  founded  on  unitj'  in  faith 
and  worship,  on  the  mightj-  recollecflions 
recalled  each  year  by  the  solemn  feasts;  the 
Passover,  or  Feast  of  Unleavened  Bread 
(commemorating  the  Exodus  from  EgA'pt); 
Pentecost  (the  promulgation  of  the  law), 
and  the  Feast  of  the  Tabernacles,  or  tents 
(the  sojourn  in  the  desert).  The  one  taber- 
nacle, where  the  solemn  sacrifices  were  of- 
fered, and  where  was  deposited  the  ark, 
the  symbol  and  covenant  made  between 
God  and  His  people,  was  equallj'  the  polit- 
ical and  religious  center  of  the  nation.  The 
Mosaic  law  presents  the  spectacle,  unique 
in  the  historj'  of  the  world,  of  a  legislation 
which  was  complete  from  the  origin  of  a 
nation,  and  subsisted  for  long  ages.  In 
spite  of  frequent  infractions,  it  was  always 
restored,  even  although  in  its  very  sublimity 
it  was  in  direcl  opposition  to  the  coarse  in- 
clinations of  the  people  whom  it  governed. 
He  alone  could  impose  it  on  the  Israelites, 
who  could  say:  'I  am  the  Lord  thy  God,' 
and  confirm  the  words  by  forty  j-ears  of 
miracles. ' ' 


We  are  further  told  that  when  everything 
was  arranged,  Moses,  at  the  command  of 
Jehovah,  took  a  census  of  the  males  of  the 
nation,  from  and  over  the  age  of  twenty 
j'ears,  capable  of  bearing  arms.  The  census 
was  taken  on  the  first  day  of  the  second 
month  from  the  epoch  of  the  Exodus  (Jyar 
— May,  1490,  or  1319,  B.  C),  and  fixed  the 
number  of  fighting  men  at  603,550.  This 
great  host  was  divided  into  four  camps,  one 
being  placed  on  each  of  the  four  sides  of  the 
tabernacle,  which  stood  in  the  center  of  the 
camp. 

Being  thus  organized  as  a  nation  and  an 
army,  the  Israelites  broke  up  their  camp  at 
Sinai  on  the  twentieth  daj^  of  their  second 
year — about  May  20,  B.  C.  1490,  or  13 19 — 
and  continued  their  advance,  and,  we  are 
informed,  were  again  led  by  the  "pillar  of 
cloud ' '  which  was  said  to  have  guided  them 
since  the  memorable  night  of  the  E.xodus, 
and  which  was  to  lead  them  to  the  ' '  Prom- 
ised Land."  Thus  guided,  the  Israelites 
were  condu<fled  into  the  Wilderness  of  Paran. 

After  several  halts,  the  Israelites  arrived 
at  Kadesh  Bamea,  near  the  frontiers  of  Ca- 
naan, whence  Moses  sent  twelve  spies,  one 
from  each  tribe  of  the  Hebrew  nation,  into 
Canaan  to  examine  the  country  and  to  re- 
port the  charadler,  condition,  strength  and 
number  of  its  inhabitants  and  its  cities. 
These  spies  were  absent  fourteen  days,  and 
during  that  time  they  explored  the  country 
from  the  Dead  Sea  to  the  slopes  of  Mount 
Hermon.  On  their  return  to  Kadesh  Bamea 
they  reported  to  Moses  and  the  subordinate 
leaders  that  the  land  was  extremely  fertile, 
but  that  the  Israelites  would  not  be  able  to 
conquer  it,  because  its  inhabitants  were  men 
of  immense  size  and  lived  in  strongly-forti- 
fied cities.  This  report  had  a  discouraging 
effecft  upon  the  Lsraelites;  and  Joshua  and 
Caleb,  who  were  two  of  the  spies,  vainly  en- 
deavored to  persuade  their  countrymen  that 
the  other  spies  had  exaggerated  the  impedi- 
ments in  the  way  of  the  conquest  of  Canaan, 
and  tried  to  raise  their  courage  by  means  of 
a  more  favorable  report.  The  people,  panic- 
stricken,  broke  out  into  open  mutiny  the 
following    morning,    declaring    that    they 


352 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


intended  to  choose  a  chief  who  would 
lead  them  back  into  Egj-pt.  Moses  and 
Aaron  vainly  fell  on  their  faces  before  their 
countrymen.  Joshua  and  Caleb  vainly 
sought  to  assure  them  of  vicftory  and  con- 
quest, and  to  dissuade  them  from  rebellion 
against  Jehovah.  The  enraged  people  were 
on  the  point  of  stoning  Moses,  Aaron, 
Joshua  and  Caleb  to  death,  when,  we  are 
again  told,  "  the  glory  of  the  Lord  filled  the 
tabernacle  ' '  and  the  people  were  induced  to 
repent  of  their  rebellious  conducfl.  Jehovah, 
it  is  said,  threatened  to  disinherit  the  rebell- 
ious nation  and  selecfl  as  his  chosen  people 
the  posterity  of  Moses;  but  when  Moses  in- 
terceded for  his  ungrateful  countrymen  they 
were  pardoned,  but  the  rebels  were  threat- 
ened with  the  displeasure  of  Jehovah,  who 
is  said  to  have  informed  Moses  that,  except- 
ing Joshua  and  Caleb,  not  a  man  of  the 
nation  from  and  over  twentj'  years  of  age 
should  enter  the  "Promised  Land,"  that 
they  should  all  die  in  the  wilderness,  in 
which  the  nation  was  condemned  to  wander 
tliirty-eight  years  longer,  and  that  their  chil- 
dren should  enter  upon  the  promised  inheri- 
tance of  the  Hebrew  race. 

The  Lsraelites,  stricken  with  anguish  upon 
hearing  of  this  doom,  were  anxious  to  be  led 
into  Canaan,  but,  we  are  told,  the  Divine 
decree  would  not  be  revoked.  The  people, 
it  is  said,  were  persistent  in  their  resolve, 
and  despite  the  warnings  of  Moses,  who  re- 
fused to  lead  them,  they  attempted  to  force 
their  way  through  a  mountain  pass  de- 
fended by  the  united  armies  of  the  Canaan- 
ites  and  the  Amalekites.  They  met  with  a 
bloody  repulse,  and  were  driven  back  into 
the  desert.  The  Israelites  led  a  nomadic 
life  for  thirty-eight  years,  roaming  over  the 
de.sert  north  of  the  peninsula  of  Sinai,  which 
the  Arabs  have  named  Et  Tih,  or  Tik  Bcni 
Israel  (the  wanderings  of  the  Children  of 
Israel).  Their  range  occupied  the  region 
from  Kadesh  Barnea  on  the  north  to  the 
head  of  the  Elanitic  gulf  (now  Gulf  of 
Akaba)  on  the  south.  They  were  not  ap- 
parently disturbed  by  any  of  the  neighbor- 
ing tribes.  In  the  meantime  the  males  of 
the  nation  over  twenty  3'ears  of  age  died, 


and  the  succeeding  generation  consisted  of 
men  trained  to  fatigue  and  war — men  who 
were  hardy  and  brave,  and  accustomed  to 
freedom — a  generation  superior  to  their  pre- 
decessors, who  had  been  reared  in  the  Egyp- 
tian bondage,  and  had  suffered  from  the 
taint  of  that  oppressive  servitude. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  fortieth  year 
after  the  Exodus,  Aaron,  the  brother  of 
Moses  and  the  High  Priest  of  the  Hebrew 
nation,  died  at  Masera  at  a  ripe  old  age,  and 
was  buried  there.  Mount  Hor  was  on  the 
border  of  the  territory  of  the  Edomites,  the 
descendants  of  Esau.  Moses  requested  a 
free  passage  for  his  countrymen  through  the 
Edomite  territory,  offering  to  respecfl  the 
property  of  the  inhabitants,  and  to  pay  for 
even  the  water  used  by  the  people  of  Israel. 
But  the  Edomites  refused  this  request,  and  it 
is  said  that  the  Hebrews  were  forbidden  by 
Jehovah  to  attack  their  kindred,  whereupon 
they  turned  towards  the  south,  marching 
toward  the  head  of  the  Elanitic  gulf,  and, 
rounding  the  mountain  range,  advanced 
again  northward,  east  of  the  territory  of 
Edom.  The  Canaanites  of  Arad  endeavored 
to  obstrucfl  the  passage  of  the  hosts  of  Israel, 
but  suffered  a  defeat.  The  Edomites  per- 
mitted the  Israelites  to  march  past  their  ter- 
ritorj'  without  disturbing  them.  We  are 
told  that  Jehovah  forbade  Moses  attacking 
the  Moabites  and  Ammonites,  descendants 
of  Lot. 

The  Hebrews  had  now  arrived  at  the 
Arnon,  a  small  stream  flowing  into  the 
eastern  side  of  the  Dead  Sea,  and  fonning 
the  southern  boundary  of  a  new  kingdom, 
founded  by  Sihon,  an  Amorite  adventurer, 
who  had  conquered  it  from  the  Moabites  and 
Ammonites.  The  Jabbok  formed  the  north- 
em  boundary  of  this  kingdom,  and  Sihon 
established  his  capital  at  Heshbon.  Moses 
sent  a  peaceful  embassy  to  Sihon,  requesting 
a  free  passage  through  his  territory,  promis- 
ing to  keep  his  countrymen  to  the  highway 
on  their  march,  and  to  pay  for  everything 
used  bj'  them.  This  request  was  refused  by 
Sihon  with  extreme  insolence,  and  that 
prince  lead  his  army  against  the  Israelites, 
but  was  totally  routed,  his  capital  was  taJcen 


THE    EXODUS    AND    WANDERINGS. 


353 


by  stonii,  and  his  kingdom  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  Hebrews.  Og,  the  gigantic  King  of 
Bashan,  whose  dominions  extended  from  the 
Jabbok  to  Mount  Hermon,  and  who  was  a 
fortunate  Amorite  adventurer,  attempted  to 
avenge  the  overthrow  of  Sihon,  but  was  de- 
feated and  killed,  and  his  kingdom  was  like- 
wise conquered  by  the  Israelites.  These 
two  conquests  made  the  Israelites  masters 
of  all  the  territory  east  of  the  Jordan,  from 
Mount  Hermon  to  the  Dead  Sea. 

The  hosts  of  Israel  now  encamped  on  the 
fertile  plains  opposite  Jericho.  Balak, 
King  of  Moab,  in  great  alarm  because  of  the 
appearance  of  so  powerful  a  nation  on  his 
borders,  entered  into  an  alliance  with  the 
Midianites  against  the  Hebrews.  Feel- 
ing sufficiently  strong  to  assail  the  strangers, 
Balak  sought  to  induce  Balaam,  a  noted 
diviner  from  the  countrj-  of  the  Ammonites, 
to  pronounce  a  curse  against  the  Israelites 
and  devote  them  to  destrudlion.  We  are 
told,  however,  that  Balaam  was  obliged  to 
bless  the  "chosen  people,"  and  to  prophesy 
to  Balak  their  future  triumphs.  The  Moab- 
ites  and  Midianites  then  endeavored  to  se- 
duce the  Israelites  from  their  religion  by  in- 
ducing them  to  participate  in  their  immoral 
and  voluptuous  worship  of  their  god  Baal- 
Peor.  This  scheme  was  so  successful  that 
Moses  had  to  resort  to  severe  measures  to 
check  the  evil.  All  the  Hebrews  guilty  of 
this  apostasy  from  the  worship  of  Jehovah 
were  put  to  death;  and  twenty-four  thousand 
men  were  carried  off  by  a  plague  which 
broke  out  in  the  camp.  The  Israelites 
then  engaged  in  a  war  of  extermination 
against  the  Midianites,  defeated  their  armies, 
ravaged  their  country  and  carried  off  a  vast 
booty. 

A  new  census  taken  at  this  time  showed 
that  there  were  601,730  fighting  men  in  the 
Israelitish  host.  The  country  conquered  on 
the  east  side  of  the  Jordan  was  exceedingly 
fertile  and  was  well  adapted  to  grazing. 
Delighted  with  this  secftion  the  tribes  of 
Reuben  and  Gad  and  the  half-tribe  of  Man- 
asseh  requested  Moses  the  possession  of  this 
region  for  their  inheritance,  as  they  had 
many  cattle.     Moses  sternly  rebuked  them 


for  sowing  dis.sensions  in  the  nation;  but 
agreed  to  the  arrangement  upon  obtaining 
the  promise  of  these  tribes  that  they  would 
only  leave  their  families  and  their  cattle  in 
their  new  homes,  while  their  fighting  men 
would  cross  the  Jordan  with  the  other  tribes 
and  aid  them  in  conquering  the  "Promised 
Land. ' '  The  tribe  of  Reuben  was  assigned 
the  southern  portion  of  the  country  east  of 
the  Jordan,  from  the  Anion  to  Mount  Gil- 
ead;  the  tribe  of  Gad  was  given  the  tracft 
north  of  the  former,  including  Mount  Gilead, 
to  the  southern  extremity  of  the  Sea  of 
Chinneroth  (the  Sea  of  Galilee);  and  the 
half-tribe  of  Manasseh  was  allotted  the  dis- 
trict north  of  Gad  as  far  as  Mount  Hermon. 
The  two  tribes  and  a  half  faithfully  observed 
their  pledges  to  their  brethren  and  rendered 
them  valuable  sen,-ice  in  the  conquest  of  the 
country  west  of  the  Jordan. 

The  great  work  of  Moses  was  now  fin- 
ished. He  had  led  the  children  of  Lsrael  to 
the  borders  of  the  "Promised  Land"  at  a 
point  where  it  could  be  easily  entered,  and 
he  is  said  to  have  been  warned  by  Jehovah 
that  his  end  was  near.  The  Scripture  record 
says  that  both  Moses  and  his  brother  Aaron 
had  been  denied  pennission  to  enter  the 
"  Promised  Land,"  because  their  faith  had 
failed  when  Jehovah  had  commanded  them  to 
speak  to  the  rock  in  Kadesh  to  give  water 
to  his  people.  We  are  likewise  told  that 
Moses  assembled  the  whole  Hebrew  nation, 
recited  the  law  in  their  presence,  prophesied 
for  them  a  blessing,  prediAing  for  them  a 
glorious  future,  named  Joshua  as  his  suc- 
cessor, and  exhorted  the  people  to  continue 
faithful  to  Jehovah.  He  then  bid  his  coun- 
trj'men  an  affedling  farewell,  and  we  are  told 
went  up  into  Mount  Nebo  at  the  command 
of  Jehovah,  who  there  showed  the  great 
Hebrew  lawgiver  the  land  which  was  to  be 
the  inheritance  of  his  people,  after  which  he 
disappeared  from  among  the  living. 

"And  Moses  went  up  from  the  plains  of 
Moab  unto  the  mountain  of  Nebo,  to  the 
top  of  Pisgah,  that  is  over  against  Jericho. 
And  the  Lord  showed  him  all  the  land  of 
Gilead,  unto  Dan.  And  all  Naphtali,  and 
the  land  of  Ephraim,  and  Manasseh,  and  all 


354 


ANCIENT   HISrORY.—  THE    HEBREWS. 


CONQUEST    OF    CANAAN— THE  JUDGES. 


355 


the  land  of  Judali,  unto  the  utmost  sea. 
And  the  south,  and  the  plain  of  the  valley 
of  Jericho,  the  city  of  palm  trees,  unto  Zoar. 
And  the  I.,ord  said  unto  him,  This  is  the 
land  which  I  sware  unto  Abraham,  unto 
Isaac,  and  unto  Jacob,  saying,  I  will  give  it 
unto  thy  seed;  I  have  caused  thee  to  see  it 
with  thine  eyes,  but  thou  shalt  not  go  over 
thither.  So  Mo.ses  the  .servant  of  the  I^ord 
died  there  in  the  land  of  Moab,  according  to 
the  word  of  the  Lord.  And  he  buried  him 
in  a  valley  in  the  land  of  Moab,  over  against 
Beth-peor;  but  no  man  knoweth  of  his  sep- 


ulcher  unto  this  day.  *  *  *  *  ^^d  the 
children  of  Israel  wept  for  Moses  in  the 
plains  of  Moab  thirty  days;  so  the  days  of 
weeping  and  mourning  for  Moses  were 
ended.  *  *  *  *  And  there  arose  not  a 
prophet  since  in  I.srael  like  unto  Moses, 
whom  the  Lord  knew  face  to  face,  In  all  the 
signs  and  the  wonders  which  the  Lord  sent 
him  to  do  in  the  land  of  Egypt  to  Pharaoh, 
and  to  all  his  servants,  and  to  all  his  land. 
And  in  all  that  mighty  land,  and  in  all  the 
great  terror  which  Moses  showed  in  the 
sight  of  all  Israel." 


SECTION  III.— CONQUEST  OF  CANAAN— THE  JUDGES. 


|FTER  the  thirty  days  of  mourn- 
ing for  Moses — exacftly  forty 
years  from  the  time  that  they 
tleparted  from  Egypt — the  Is- 
raelites broke  up  their  camp 
on  the  plains  of  Moab,  and  advanced  toward 
the  Jordan  under  the  leadership  of  Joshua. 
The  column  was  led  by  the  priests  carrying 
the  Ark  of  the  Covenant.  The  Jordan  was 
swollen  with  the  spring  freshets,  and  was 
too  high  to  be  forded.  As  the  priests  step- 
ped into  the  stream,  carrying  the  sacred  ark, 
the  waters,  we  are  told,  were  miraculously 
divided,  as  had  been  the  Red  Sea,  and  a 
wide  path  was  opened,  along  which  the 
Hebrew  host  passed  to  the  western  side  of 
the  stream,  and  entered  Canaan  (B.  C.  145 1 
or  B.  C.  1280).  The  Israelites  encamped  at 
Gilgal,  on  the  plains  of  Jericho,  for  the 
night.  The  supply  of  manna  is  said  to  have 
ceased  here,  and  thenceforth  the  Israelites 
subsisted  upon  the  produdls  of  the  country 
which  they  had  come  to  conquer. 

We  will  now  give  an  account  of  the  char- 
a(5ler  of  the  Canaanitish  tribes,  or  nations, 
with  whom  the  Israelites  were  now  to  wrestle 
for  the  possession  of  the  "Promised  Land." 
During  the  patriarchial  period,  Canaan, 
or  Palestine,  was  occupied  hy  numerous 
tribes  of  Canaanites,  descendants  of  Canaan, 
the  fourth  son  of  Ham.    The  name  Canaan- 


ites was  sometimes  assigned  to  a  particular 
tribe  occupying  a  certain  part  of  Palestine, 
but  was  more  generally  applied  to  all  the 
inhabitants  of  that  countrj',  and  embraced 
.seven  distindt  nations,  as  follows,  according 
to  Dr.  William  Smith: 

"I.  The  Canaanites,  the  ' lowlanders, ' 
who  inhabited  the  plain  on  the  lower  Jordan, 
and  that  on  the  sea-shore.  These  plains 
were  the  richest  and  most  important  part  of 
the  country. 

"II.  The  Pcrizzites  seem,  next  to  the 
Canaanites,  to  have  been  the  most  important 
tribe.  *****  ju  Judges  I.  4,  5, 
they  are  placed  in  the  southern  part  of  the 
Holy  Land,  and  in  Joshua  XVI.  15-18,  they 
occupy,  with  the  Rephaim,  or  giants,  the 
'  forest  country '  in  the  western  flanks  of 
Mount  Carmel. 

"III.  The  Hittites,  or  children  of  Heth, 
were  a  small  tribe  at  Hebron,  of  whom 
Abraham  purchased  the  cave  of  Machpelab. 
They  are  represented  as  a  peaceful  people. 

"IV.  The  Aniorites,  'mountaineers,'  a 
warlike  tribe,  occupied  first  the  barrier 
heights  west  of  the  Dead  Sea,  at  the  same 
place  which  afterwards  bore  the  name  of 
En-gedi,  stretching  westward  towards  He- 
bron. At  the  time  of  the  conquest  they 
had  crossed  the  Jordan  and  occupied  the 
.   rich  tract    bounded  by "  the  Jabbok  on  the 


356 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— THE   HEBREWS. 


north  and  the  Amon  on  the  south,  the  Jor- 
dan on  the  west  and  the  wilderness  on  the 
east. 

' '  V.  The  Hivitcs  are  first  named  at  the 
time  of  Jacob's  return  to  the  Holy  Land, 
where  they  occupied  Shechem.  At  the  time 
of  the  conquest  hy  Joshua,  the}'  were  living 
on  the  northern  confines  of  Western  Pales- 
tine. 

' '  VI.  The  Jebusitcs,  a  mountain  tribe,  oc- 
cupying Jebus  (Jerusalem),  where  they  con- 
tinued to  dwell  with  the  children  of  Judah 
and  Benjamin  to  a  late  date. 

"VII.  The  Girgasites,  whose  position  is 
quite  uncertain." 

During  the  period  when  the  Israelites 
were  sojourning  in  Egypt  several  important 
changes  occurred  in  the  characfter  and  loca- 
tion of  the  nations  occupying  the  land  of 
Canaan.  The  maritime  people  of  Phoenicia, 
situated  immediately  north  of  Palestine,  had 
risen  quietly  and  suddenly,  and  had  become 
the  most  enlightened  and  the  wealthiest 
community  of  antiquity.  Phoenicia,  how- 
ever, did  not  attain  its  highest  pinnacle  of 
greatness  and  prosperity  until  several  cen- 
turies later,  about  B.  C.  1050.  At  the  time 
when  the  Lsraelites  entered  Canaan,  the 
PhcEnicians,  who  occupied  a  narrow  strip 
around  the  .sea-coast,  and  whose  territory 
was  embraced  in  the  region  assigned  as  a 
heritage  to  the  Hebrews,  had  established 
themselves  firmly  in  the  country,  and  were 
sufficiently  powerful  to  hold  it  against  the 
strangers. 

The  sea-coast  of  the  Holy  Land  proper,  on 
the  coast  south  of  Phoenicia,  was  occupied 
by  the  Philistines,  a  warlike  and  powerful 
nation,  whom  some  authorities  consider  a 
Semitic  people,  while  others  regard  them  as 
a  Hamitic  race.  Those  who  believe  them 
to  be  Semites  maintain  that  they  cros.sed 
over  from  the  island  of  Crete,  while  those 
who  hold  that  they  were  Hamites  suppose 
that  they  came  into  Canaan  from  Egypt. 
Their  territory  was  called  Philistia,  from 
which  the  name  Palestine  has  been  derived. 
The  Philistines  are  believed  to  have  mi- 
grated to  Caanan  before  the  time  of  Abra- 
ham; and  during  their  sojourn  in  that  land 


they  were  a  pastoral  tribe  in  the  vicinity  of 
Gerar.  During  the  patriarchal  period,  and 
the  epoch  of  the  sojourn  of  the  Israelites  in 
Egypt,  the  Philistines  renounced  their  no- 
madic life  and  developed  into  a  settled  and 
powerful  nation.  They  established  them- 
selves in  the  fertile  plain  bordering  upon 
the  sea-coast,  which  was  therefore  called 
the  Plain  of  Philistia.  The  great  fertility 
of  this  plain  was  the  basis  of  their  wealth 
and  prosperity.  In  times  of  scarcity  and 
famine  all  the  neighboring  nations  depended 
upon  them  for  bread.  The  low  trac5l  which 
they  occupied  favored  their  development  as 
a  formidable  military  people,  as  it  enabled 
them  to  transport  their  troops  with  ease  and 
rapidity,  and  admitted  of  the  maneuvering 
of  war-chariots,  "the  artillery  of  the 
ancients,"  in  which  these  people  were 
alwaj's  very  formidable.  It  is  believed  that 
the  Philistines  had  a  navy,  as  historians  sev- 
eral times  allude  to  them  in  accounts  of 
naval  expeditions  and  naval  battles.  Gaza 
and  Ascalon  were  Philistine  sea-ports. 
Many  well-fortified  cities  were  built  by  the 
Philistines  in  the  plain,  its  undulating  char- 
acfter  affording  numerous  excellent  sites  for 
such  strongholds.  The  most  important 
Philistine  cities  besides  its  seaports,  Gaza 
and  Ascalon,  were  Ashdod,  Ekron  and 
Gath. 

Thus  the  two  most  important  nations  in 
Palestine  when  the  Israelites  conquered  the 
country  were  the  Phoenicians  on  the  north 
and  the  Philistines  on  the  south.  We  have 
seen  that  the  ' '  Promised  Land ' '  embraced 
the  territory  extending  from  the  Arabian 
desert  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  from  the 
de.sert  of  Sinai  to  "the  entering  in  of  Ha- 
math,"  the  name  applied  in  Scripture  to  the 
low  range  of  hills  forming  the  water-sheds 
between  the  Orontes  and  the  Litany.  Phoe- 
nicia, the  northern  part  of  Canaan,  was 
never  occupied  by  the  Israelites.  The  Phil- 
istine plain  was  constantly  contested,  and 
was  seldom  a  safe  and  peaceful  possession 
of  the  Hebrews.  The  ' '  Land  of  Possession  ' ' 
lay  only  between  Dan  on  the  north  and  Beer- 
sheba  on  the  south;  hence  the  frequency-  of 
the  allusion  in  the  Old  Testament  in  speak- 


CONQUEST    OF    CANAAN—THE  JUDCES. 


357 


ing  of  the  northern  and  southern  Hniits  of 
the  Hebrew  state:  "From  Dau  to  Beer- 
sheeba. ' ' 

The  country  itself — known  variously  as 
the  Promised  Land,  Canaan,  Palestine,  Ju- 
dasa,  or  the  Holy  Land — was  in  many  partic- 
ulars a  remarkable  region.  Its  importance 
in  the  historj-  of  mankind  vastly  overshadows 
its  small  territorial  extent.  Palestine  is  a 
very  small  country — about  the  size  of  the 
principality  of  Wales  or  the  State  of  New 
Jersey.  Its  entire  length  from  north  to  south 
is  about  one  hundred  and  eighty  miles,  and 
its  average  breadth  from  east  to  west  about 
forty-five  miles,  thus  giving  the  country  an 
area  of  eight  thousand  square  miles.  It 
lies  between  latitude  thirty  degrees  forty 
minutes  and  thirty-three  degrees  forty-two 
minutes  north,  and  between  longitude  thirty- 
three  degrees  forty-two  minutes  and  thirty- 
five  degrees  forty-eight  minutes  east.  It  is 
bounded  on  the  north  by  Syria,  on  the 
east  by  the  Jordan  and  the  country  now 
known  as  the  Hauran,  on  the  south  by  the 
Desert  of  Et  Tik,  and  on  the  west  by  the 
Mediterranean.  It  is  located  in  Western 
Asia,  to  the  north  of  Egj-pt,  and  to  the 
north  and  west  of  Arabia. 

It  is  practically  a  mountainous  region.  It 
has  no  independent  mountain  chains,  and 
other  countries  surpass  it  in  the  height  and 
grandeur  of  its  mountains;  "but  every  part 
of  the  highland  is  in  greater  or  less  undula- 
tion." The  mountain  region  occupies  the 
center  of  the  country,  and  lowlands  border 
it  on  both  the  east  and  the  west,  extending 
fi-om  the  foot  of  the  uplands  to  the  bound- 
aries of  Palestine.  This  lowland  spreads 
out  on  the  west  into  the  two  great  plains  of 
Philistia  and  Sharon,  which  extend  from  the 
foot  of  the  mountains  to  the  sea.  The 
mountains  are  bordered  on  the  east  by  the 
remarkable  depression  of  the  Jordan  valley, 
still  continued  by  the  yet  more  remarkable 
depression  of  the  Dead  Sea  and  by  the  Ghor. 
"The  slopes,  or  cliffs,  which  form,  as  it  were, 
the  retaining  walls  of  this  depression  are 
furrowed  and  cleft  by  the  torrent  beds 
which  discharge  the  waters  of  the  hills,  and 
form  the  means  of  communication  between 


the  ujiper  and  lower  levels.  These  three 
features — the  mountains,  the  plains  and  the 
torrent  beds — make  up  the  principal  physi- 
cal chara<5leristics  of  the  Holy  Land." 

Little  over  midway  up  the  coast,  the  plain 
is  .suddenly  broken  by  a  bold  spur  of  the 
mountain  chain,  leaving  the  middle  mass 
and  running  abruptly  north-west  to  the 
sea,  there  ending  in  the  beautiful  promontory 
of  Mount  Carmel,  which  is  also  the  name 
of  the  entire  spur  or  ridge.  North  of  Car- 
mel the  plain  again  commences,  and  there 
pushes  back  the  mountains  and  reaches  en- 
tirely across  Palestine  to  the  Jordan  val- 
ley. This  is  the  famous  plain  of  Esdraelon, 
or  Jezreel.  North  of  this  plain  the  moun- 
tains are  again  seen,  first  in  the  low  hills  of 
Galilee,  and  rising  higher  until  Mount  Her- 
mon  and  the  Lebanons  are  reached.  The 
mountains  again  push  their  way  out  to  the 
sea,  and  end  in  the  white  headland  of  Ras 
Nakhilra,  north  of  which  is  the  ancient 
Phoenicia. 

The  height  of  the  mountainous  region  is 
usually  uniform  along  its  whole  course,  with 
an  average  of  from  fifteen  hundred  toeighteen 
hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean sea.  Says  Dr.  William  Smith:  "It 
can  hardly  be  denominated  a  plateau,  j-et  so 
evenly  is  the  general  level  preserved,  and  so 
thickly  do  the  hills  stand  behind  and  be- 
tween one  another,  that  when  seen  from  the 
coast  or  the  western  part  of  the  maritime 
plain,  it  has  quite  the  appearance  of  a  wall." 
This  .seeming  monotony  is  broken  at  inter- 
vals by  greater  elevations,  and  these  consti- 
tute the  most  conspicuous  features  of  the 
landscape.  The  water-shed  of  the  country 
lies  between  these  highest  points,  and  on  each 
side  the  many  torrent  beds  descend  to  the 
Jordan  valley  on  the  east,  and  to  the  Medi- 
terranean on  the  west.  The  valleys  on  the 
east  are  very  steep  and  rugged,  particularly 
in  the  middle  and  southern  parts  of  the 
country;  but  those  on  the  west  slope  more 
gradually.  As  the  level  of  the  mari- 
time plain  is  higher  than  that  of  the 
Jordan  valley,  it  gives  them  a  more  grad- 
ual descent,  which  is  rendered  easier  by 
the  greater  distance  intervening  between  the 


358 


ANCIENT   HISTORY  — THE    HEBREWS. 


mountains  and  the  sea  than  between  the 
mountains  and  the  Jordan.  Upoii  the  west- 
ern side,  as  upon  the  eastern,  the  valleys,  or 
wadies,  form  the  only  means  of  communica- 
tion between  the  mountains  and  the  plains. 
All  the  roads  from  the  borders  to  the  interior 
are  located  along  these  valleys.  These 
mountain  passes  constitute  a  singular  fea- 
ture of  Palestine,  and  were  very  important 
to  it  in  ancient  times.  Being  difficult,  they 
presented  very  great  obstacles  to  an  army 
burdened  with  a  camp  train  or  baggage. 
The  western  passes,  though  easier  than  the 
eastern,  were  still  difficult,  and  made  it  no 
easy  task  for  an  enemy  to  enter  the  territory 
of  the  Israelites.  Secure  in  their  mountain 
fastnesses,  the  Israelites  were  frequently  un- 
disturbed, while  the  cities  of  the  plain  below 
them  were  captured  and  recaptured  by  the 
struggling  armies  of  Egypt  and  Asia.  The 
plain  of  Esdraelon  was  the  great  battle-field 
of  Palestine,  but  the  mountains  were  com- 
paratively free  from  warlike  operations. 

The  river  Jordan  constituted  the  eastern 
boundary  of  the  "  Promised  Land,"  and  is 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  rivers  of  the 
world.  It  rises  on  the  slope  of  Mount  Her- 
nion  and  flows  through  an  extraordinary 
depression,  known  as  the  Jordan  valley, 
passing  through  Lake  Huleh  and  the  Lake 
of  Tiberias,  or  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  empty- 
ing into  the  Dead  Sea.  Its  source  is  1700 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  Mediterranean; 
its  mouth  is  13 17  feet  below  the  sea  level, 
making  the  entire  descent  of  the  river  3017 
feet.  The  river  is  two  hundred  miles  long; 
the  distance  in  a  straight  line  is  sixty  miles. 
The  Jordan  was  never  a  navigable  stream, 
and  was  passed  only  by  fords  in  ancient 
times.  No  bridges  were  thrown  over  it  until 
after  the  Roman  conquest  of  Palestine.  No 
cities  were  located  on  its  banks.  Jericho 
and  the  other  towns  were  situated  some  dis- 
tance away  from  the  river. 

The  first  exploit  of  the  Israelites  after 
entering  Palestine  was  the  capture  of  the 
strong  city  of  Jericho,  which  stood  immedi- 
ately in  front  of  the  place  where  they  had 
crossed  the  river  Jordan,  and  which  com- 
manded the  Jordan  valley.     The  Israelites 


having  no  means  of  conducfling  a  siege,  it  is 
said  that  Jehovah  came  to  their  aid.  The 
walls  are  said  to  have  been  thrown  down  in  a 
miraculous  manner;  and  when  the  Israelites 
entered  the  city  over  its  ruined  fortifications 
they  put  the  people  to  the  sword  and  de- 
stroyed the  city.  The  only  family  which 
escaped  the  general  massacre  was  that  of 
"Rahab  the  harlot,"  who  had  received  and 
befriended  the  spies  sent  by  Joshua  into 
the  city  before  it  fell,  and  who  had  conse- 
quently been  promised  protecflion  to  her 
household.  She  afterward  became  the  wife 
of  one  of  the  spies,  and  was  the  ancestress 
of  David.  Proceeding  up  the  Jordan  valley 
Joshua  turned  to  the  left  and  took  the 
stronghold  of  Ai,  near  Bethel,  by  stratagem, 
and,  advancing  rapidly  to  Shechem,  cap- 
tured the  city  without  striking  a  blow,  and 
established  himself  in  the  heart  of  the 
country. 

The  Canaanitish  tribes  now  recovered 
from  the  surprise  and  dismay  into  which 
they  had  been  thrown  by  the  quick  and  suc- 
cessful operations  of  the  Israelites,  and 
united  in  a  general  coalition  against  the  He- 
brew invaders  of  their  country.  Joshua  de- 
feated the  allied  forces  of  the  Canaanitish 
kings  in  the  great  battle  of  Beth-horon,  in 
which  we  are  told  that  the  day  was  mirac- 
ulously lengthened  to  enable  the  Israelites 
to  complete  their  vidlorj'.  The  kings  of  the 
five  Canaanitish  tribes  were  taken  prisoners, 
and  were  hanged.  After  this  vidlory  the 
Israelites  captured  successively  the  cities  of 
Makkedah,  Libnah,  Lachish,  Eglon,  He- 
bron and  Debir,  and  exterminated  their  in- 
habitants. The.se  successes  completed  the 
conquest  of  vSouthern  Palestine  by  the  Is- 
raelites. 

A  second  coalition  was  now  formed  against 
the  Hebrews,  and  embraced  all  the  tribes  of 
Northern  Palestine.  The  leader  of  this  co- 
alition was  Jabin,  King  of  Hazor.  Joshua 
routed  the  allied  army  on  the  banks  of  Lake 
Merom  (now  I^ake  Huleh),  and  Jabin  was 
taken  prisoner  and  put  to  death.  Many 
cities  of  Northern  Palestine  then  fell  into 
the  possession  of  the  Israelites,  and  their  in- 
habitants  were    mas.sacred.       The   Anakin 


CONQUEST    OF    CANAAN— THE  JUDGES. 


359 


of  Southern  Palestine  were  then  attacked  and 
exterminated.  The  IsraeHtes  were  occupied 
six  or  seven  years  in  making  these  con- 
quests, and  were  finally  in  possession  of  all 
the  "Promised  Land"  from  the  foot  of 
Mount  Hernion  to  the  borders  of  Edom. 
The  Canaanites  still  held  many  of  their 
strongest  cities  in  the  midst  of  the  Hebrew 
conquests.  The  Philistines  held  the  sea- 
coast  of  Southern  Palestine,  and  the  Phoe- 
nicians that  of  Northern  Palestine. 

Joshua  had  now  reached  an  advanced  age, 
and  concluded  to  suspend  his  conquests  and 
devote  his  remaining  years  to  establishing 
the  Israelites  firmly  in  the  lands  which  their 
arms  had  won.  It  is  said  that  he  was  com- 
manded by  Jehovah  to  divide  the  ' '  Promised 
Land' '  by  lot  among  the  nine  and  a  half  tribes 
now  located  west  of  the  Jordan;  the  other 
two  and  a  half  tribes  having  received  their 
allotment  east  of  the  Jordan  from  Moses, 
and  the  Levites  having  no  special  territory 
bestowed  on  them.  The  di^•ision  of  the 
tribe  of  Joseph  into  the  two  tribes  of  Eph- 
raim  and  Manasseh  made  up  for  the  with- 
drawal of  the  Levites  from  the  number  of 
the  twelve  tribes  to  devote  themselves  es- 
pecially to  the  .ser\'ice  of  Jehovah.  The 
territorj-  divided  among  the  Hebrew  tribes 
included  many  places  yet  held  by  the  Ca- 
naanites and  the  Philistines,  and  Joshua  re- 
signed to  each  tribe  the  duty  of  reducing 
the  strongholds  and  possessions  of  these 
people  within  the  territon,'  allotted  to  the 
twelve  tribes. 

The  tribe  of  Judah  obtained  the  South 
Country.  Its  southern  boundarj-  reached  the 
territory  of  the  Edomites  and  the  Arabian 
desert,  while  its  northern  limit  was  a  line 
drawn  from  the  mouth  of  the  Jordan  west- 
ward to  the  Mediterranean  sea.  A  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  Philistine  plain 
was  embraced  in  this  allotment.  The 
children  of  Joseph  were  assigned  the  central 
part  of  the  countr>%  from  the  Jordan  to  the 
Mediterranean.  The  tribe  of  Ephraim  ob- 
tained the  southern  part  of  this  tracT:,  and  its 
southern  limit  ' '  was  drawn  from  the  Jor- 
dan along  the  north  side  of  the  plain  of 
Jericho    to  Bethel,   whence  it  took  a  bend 


.southward  to  Beth-horon,  and  thence  up 
again  to  the  .sea  near  Joppa.  The  northeni 
border  passed  west  from  the  Jordan  opposite 
the  mouth  of  the  Jabbok,  past  Michmethah 
to  the  mouth  of  the  river  Kanah."  It  in- 
cluded the  sacred  valley  of  Shechem  and  the 
maritime  plain  of  Sharon.  The  half-tribe 
of  Manasseh  occupied  the  districl  north  of 
Ephraim  as  far  as  the  range  of  Mount  Carmel 
and  the  plain  of  E.sdraelon,  from  the  Jordan 
westward  to  the  Mediterranean.  To  Benja- 
min was  assigned  the  hill  country  north  of 
Judah  and  south  of  Ephraim,  from  the  Jordan 
west  as  far  as  Jerusalem.  Dan  received  the 
tradl  between  Ephraim  on  the  north,  Judah 
on  the  south,  Benjamin  on  the  east,  and  the 
Mediterranean  on  the  west.  The  greater  part 
of  this  region  was  occupied  by  the  Philistines. 
For  this  reason,  and  because  their  territory 
was  too  small  for  them,  a  portion  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Dan  migrated  northward,  and  took 
the  cit}^  of  Leshem,  or  Laish,  at  the  source 
of  the  Jordan.  They  named  the  city  Dan, 
and  acquired  a  considerable  tradl  around 
it.  This  city  became  the  great  northeni 
landmark  of  the  Promised  Land,  as  Beer- 
sheba  was  the  southern.  Hence  the  phrase 
"from  Dan  even  to  Beer-sheba,"  so  fre- 
quently used  in  alluding  to  the  whole  ex- 
tent of  the  Hebrew  couutr\'  from  north  to 
south.  The  tribe  of  Simeon  was  allotted  an 
inheritance  out  of  Judah's  portion,  and 
was  seated  in  the  south-western  portion  of 
the  maritime  plain.  Their  frontier  bordered 
on  the  desert  from  Beer-sheba  westward  to 
Gaza,  and  their  sea-coa.st  extended  north  to 
Ascalon.  Issachar  was  given  the  great  and 
fertile  valley  of  Jezreel,  known  also  as 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon.  Zebulun  received 
the  mountain  range  bordering  the  plain 
of  Esdraelon  on  the  north,  and  which  in 
after  times  constituted  the  upper  part 
of  Lower  Galilee.  He  po.ssessed  a  small 
strip  of  sea-coast  north  of  Mount  Cannel, 
and  his  eastern  border  included  the  Sea  of 
Chinneroth  (Sea  of  Galilee).  Asher  ob- 
tained the  plain  along  the  Mediterranean 
from  Mount  Carmel,  in  a  northerly  dire(5lion, 
including  a  considerable  portion  of  Phceni- 
cia.    The  Israelites  never  made  anj-  attempt 


36o 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


to  secure  the  Phceuician  portion  of  their  in- 
heritance, and  Asher's  northern  boundary 
was  adlually  the  Phoenician  border  south  of 
Tyre.  His  territory  extended  to  the  east 
about  midwey  across  Palestine.  NaphtaH 
was  assigned  the  country  north  of  Zebulun 
to  Mount  Hermon  and  between  the  Jordan 
and  the  territory'  of  Asher.  The  two  tribes 
and  a  half  east  of  the  Jordan  were  allowed 
to  rest  contented  with  their  share  of  the 
spoils  of  conquest,  and  were  dismissed  with 
blessings,  after  which  they  returned  to 
their  homes  beyond  the  river. 

Feeling  his  end  approaching,  Joshua  as- 
sembled the  representatives  of  the  entire 
Hebrew  nation  at  Shechem,  and  after  re- 
minding them  of  the  Divine  goodness  to  the 
nation,  exhorted  them  to  remain  faithful  to 
the  worship  of  Jehovah  and  the  laws  of 
Moses,  and  to  continue  the  war  against  the 
Canaanites  until  they  had  ultimately  ex- 
pelled them  from  the  whole  of  the  Promised 
Land.  Joshua,  who  was  said  to  have  been 
divinely  commissioned  to  exterminate  the 
Canaanitish  race,  because  of  its  crimes,  re- 
minded his  people  of  their  duty,  and  pre- 
didled  great  misfortunes  for  them  if  they 
renounced  their  religion,  or  neglected  to  ex- 
ecute Jehovah's  purposes  regarding  the  Ca- 
naanites, or  mingled  with  them.  The  people 
solemnly  vowed  to  obey  him  and  renewed 
their  covenant  with  Jehovah.  Thereupon 
Joshua  set  up  in  the  place  of  the  assembly 
a  monumental  stone  as  a  witness  of  this  vow 
of  the  Hebrew  nation.  Soon  afterward 
Joshua  died  at  a  venerable  age,  after  con- 
dudling  the  affairs  of  Israel  for  twenty-five 
years,  and  was  greatly  mourned  by  the 
whole  Hebrew  nation. 

Jo.shua  unfortunately  failed  to  appoint  a 
successor,  and  the  nation  was  thus  left  with- 
out a  legitimate  head.  During  the  lives  of 
the  Elders  who  had  been  his  contemporaries, 
the  Israelites  reverenced  the  laws  of  Moses 
and  held  fast  to  the  worship  of  Jehovah;  but 
when  the.se  Elders  died  dissensions  and  di- 
visions distracfted  the  nation,  alienating  the 
different  tribes  from  each  other.  No  earnest 
effort  was  made  to  conquer  the  cities  still 
held    by    the    Canaanites.      The    northern 


tribes  began  to  appear  indifferent  concern- 
ing the  national  ties,  and  .secured  the  best 
terms  possible  for  themselves  from  the  Ca- 
naanites in  their  midst.  The  Israelites  were 
repulsed  in  their  efforts  to  conquer  the  land 
of  the  Philistines,  and  the  coast  cities  mostly 
remained  in  the  possession  of  that  powerful 
and  warlike  people.  The  intercourse  which 
arose  between  the  Israelites  and  the  Canaan- 
ites soon  led  to  evil  results.  The  great  re- 
ligious center  of  the  Hebrew  nation  was 
Shiloh,  where  the  Tabernacle  and  the  Ark 
of  the  Covenant  had  been  set  up.  At  this 
time  the  Altar  of  God  began  constantly  to 
become  more  and  more  negledted,  and  the 
idolatrous  worship  of  the  Canaanites  was  in- 
troduced among  the  Hebrews.  Civil  wars 
broke  out  among  the  tribes  of  Israel,  and 
in  one  of  these  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  was 
almost  exterminated  by  the  other  tribes. 
The  Book  of  Judges  describes  this  condition 
of  affairs  in  the  following  words:  "There 
was  no  king  in  Israel;  every  man  did  that 
which  was  right  in  his  own  eyes."  There 
was  no  central  or  general  government  to 
hold  the  nation  together  or  to  enforce  civil 
order;  and  although,  according  to  the  the- 
ocracy established  by  Moses,  Jehovah  was 
the  King  of  the  Hebrews,  idolatry  spread  so 
rapidly  and  obtained  .so  firm  a  hold  on  the 
nation  that  the  moral  restraints  which  had 
held  the  Israelites  in  lo^-alty  to  their  Divine 
Ruler  were  utterly  disregarded.  The  result 
was  division  and  weakness.  The  Canaan- 
ites and  Philistines  were  not  slow  to  dis- 
cover this,  and  sought  to  avenge  their  past 
grievances  by  subjecting  the  Israelites  ~to 
their  yoke.  We  are  told  that,  as  a  punish- 
ment for  their  repealed  apostasy  from  the 
worship  of  Jehovah,  the  Israelites  were  as 
repeatedly  abandoned  to  their  enemies,  who 
cruelly  oppressed  them,  and  thus  were  blind 
instruments  to  execute  the  Divine  judg- 
ments upon  the  faithless  and  rebellious  na- 
tion. When  the  sufferings  of  the  Israel- 
ites became  unendurable,  they  realized  the 
enormity  of  their  sins  and  their  ingratitude 
to  Jehovah,  and  in  sorrow  and  humiliation 
they  became  penitent  and  implored  Jehovah 
for  aid  against  their  enemies.     We  are  told 


CONQUEST   OF   CANAAN— THE  JUDGES. 


361 


that  their  prayers  were  heard  aud  answered 
by  Jehovah,  who  raised  up  valiant  and  he- 
roic leaders  to  deliver  His  "chosen  people" 
from  the  cruel  >-oke  of  their  oppressors. 
These  leaders  delivered  Israel  by  defeating 
its  oppressors  and  reestablishing  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  Hebrew  nation.  No  sooner, 
however,  were  the  Israelites  liberated  from 
the  despotic  sway  of  foreign  kings  and  peo- 
ples, than  they  again  apostatized  to  idolatrj% 
and  were  again  chastised  by  fresh  defeats 
and  subjugation. 

The  deliverers  thus  said  to  have  been 
raised  up  by  Jehovah  to  free  His  people  from 
the  oppressive  yoke  of  their  enemies  were 
caW&A  Judges.  By  rescuing  the  people  from 
their  enemies  they  became  their  governors 
or  rulers,  performing  their  duties  as  repre- 
sentatives or  agents  of  Jehovah,  Whose  de- 
sire was  ascertained  in  a  prescribed  manner. 
These  Judges  were  not  only  the  civil  chiefs 
of  the  Hebrews,  but  were  their  military 
commanders  and  led  their  armies  in  battle. 
The  Judge  did  not  rank  with  a  king  in 
power  or  dignity-.  His  station  was  but  lit- 
tle above  that  of  the  mass  of  the  nation, 
and  was  not  hereditars-.  The  Judge  was 
believed  to  be  supematurally  direcfted  by 
revelations  from  Jehovah,  either  to  himself 
or  to  others.  The  consent  of  the  people 
was  necessary  for  the  exercise  of  his  func- 
tions, and  his  authority  was  not  always  rec- 
ognized by  the  entire  nation.  He  was  ap- 
pointed for  life,  but  his  successor  was  not 
always  seledted  after  his  death.  There  were 
sometimes  long  interregnums  between  the 
administration  of  one  Judge  and  that  of 
another.  During  these  interregnums  the 
Hebrew  nation  was  either  without  a  civil 
head,  or  was  subjeA  to  the  dominion  of 
some  foreign  conqueror.  The  Old  Testa- 
ment gives  us  the  names  of  fifteen  Judges 
altogether.  The  period  of  the  Judges  cov- 
ered several  centuries,  and  its  chronology  is 
very  uncertain.  The  dates  usually  assigned 
for  the  events  of  this  period  are  unreliable. 

During  the  lifetime  of  the  generation 
of  Hebrews  following  the  conquest  of  Ca- 
naan, a  King  of  Western  Mesopotamia, 
called    Chushan-rishathaim,    extended    his 


dominions  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  borders 
of  Canaan,  reduced  the  Israelites  to  a  con- 
dition of  subje(5lion,  and  held  them  tribu- 
tary for  eight  years,  during  which  he  griev- 
ously oppressed  them.  At  length  Jehovah, 
we  are  informed,  raised  up  Othniel,  the 
nephew  of  Caleb,  the  contemporary  of 
Moses  and  Joshua.  Othniel,  as  Judge,  de- 
feated the  invaders  and  recovered  the  inde- 
pendence of  his  countrj-men,  who  remained 
undisturbed  for  fortj-  j-ears. 

At  the  end  of  this  period  of  forty  j-ears, 
Eglon,King  of  Moab,  who  had  formed  an 
alliance  with  the  Ammonites  and  the  Amale- 
kites,  crossed  the  Jordan,  defeated  the 
Israelites,  and  established  himself  near  the 
site  of  Jericho.  He  held  the  Israelites  in 
bondage  for  eighteen  years,  after  which  he 
was  assassinated  by  Ehud,  a  Benjamite,  as 
the  latter  was  presenting  to  the  king  the 
tribute  required  of  his  tribe.  Ehud  escaped, 
rallied  the  Israelites,  and  drove  the  Moab- 
ites  beyond  the  Jordan,  inflidling  a  loss  of 
ten  thousand  men  upon  them.  This  victory 
secured  tranquillity  for  portions  of  Palestine 
for  twenty-four  years,  but  this  state  of  peace 
did  not  embrace  the  whole  countn,'. 

The  Old  Testament  names  Shamgar  as 
the  third  of  the  Judges.  He  is  said  to  have 
led  a  body  of  laborers  armed  only  with  agri- 
cultural implements,  and  to  have  defeated  a 
Philistine  army,  himself  slaying  six  hun- 
dred of  the  enemy  with  an  ox-goad. 

After  the  death  of  Ehud  the  Israelites 
again  apostatized  to  idolatry,  for  which  sin 
Jehovah  is  said  to  have  delivered  them  into 
the  power  of  the  Canaanite  Jabin,  King  of 
Hazor,  a  descendant  of  the  king  whom 
Joshua  had  defeated,  and  like  him  the  chief  of 
a  powerful  confederacy'  in  the  North  of  Pales- 
tine. This  monarch  had  nine  hundred  iron 
chariots  in  his  array,  which  was  under  the 
command  of  a  great  general  named  Sisera. 
Jabin  overran  the  North  of  Palestine,  reduc- 
ing its  inhabitants  to  slavery.  This  bondage 
lasted  twenty  years. 

At  this  time  the  prophetess  Deborah  ad- 
ministered justice  to  the  Israelites  under  a 
palm  grove  between  Ramah  and  Bethel,  in 
Mount  Ephraim.     Excited  by  the  wrongs 


362 


AA'CIENT  HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


of  her  people,  she  sumnioned  Barak,  the 
son  of  Abinoam,  of  Kadesh,  in  Naphtah, 
to  lead  in  an  effort  to  free  the  Hebrew  na- 
tion, promising  him  that  Jehovah  would 
give  him  vicftory.  Barak  agreed  to  do  so  on 
condition  that  Deborah  should  accompany 
him.  She  consented,  but  warned  him  that 
he  would  win  no  honor  from  the  vidlory,  as 
Jehovah  would  sell  Sisera  into  the  hands  of 
a  woman.  Barak  gathered  the  forces  of 
Naphtali,  Zebulun  and  Issachar,  with  a  few 
men  from  Ephraim,  Manasseh  and  Benja- 
min, altogether  about  ten  thousand  men, 
and  took  position  on  Mount  Tabor.  Sisera 
advanced  to  meet  him  without  delay  at  the 
head  of  Jabin's  armj-.  Barak  attacked  him 
on  the  banks  of  the  Kishon,  and,  with  the 
aid  of  a  severe  storm  which  overflowed  the 
stream  and  destroj'ed  a  portion  of  the  army 
of  the  Canaanites,  routed  him  with  frightful 
lo.ss.  Sisera  fled  on  foot  and  found  shelter 
in  the  tent  of  Heber  the  Kenite,  in  the 
North  of  Palestine.  Jael,  Heber's  wife, 
killed  him  in  his  sleep,  thus  fulfilling  De- 
borah's prophecy.  Barak  took  the  city  of 
Harosheth,  Sisera's  home,  afterwards  Hazor, 
Jabin's  capital,  and  killed  Jabin  himself. 
Aided  by  the  other  tribes,  Barak  continued 
the  war  until  he  had  liberated  the  whole 
Hebrew  nation.  These  triumphs  were  fol- 
lowed by  forty  j-ears  of  peace  for  the  tribes 
that  had  participated  in  the  war. 

The  Israelites  were  next  chastised  for  laps- 
ing into  idolatry  by  being  delivered  into  the 
power  of  the  Midianites,  who,  aided  by  the 
Amalekites  and  the  Bedouin  Arab  tribes, 
made  repeated  raids  into  Palestine,  ravaging 
the  country  as  far  as  Gaza,  carrjdng  off 
everything  they  could  transport,  and  de- 
stroying everything  that  they  could  not  take 
along.  The  Israelites  were  obliged  to  con- 
ceal their  cattle  and  crops  in  caves  in  the 
groimd,  and  to  live  in  fortified  cities.  This 
condition  of  things  lasted  seven  years,  and 
Anally  the  Hebrews,  in  humiliation  and 
penitence,  implored  Jehovah  for  deliverance. 
Jehovah,  it  is  .said,  summoned  Gideon,  the 
.son  of  Joash,  of  the  tribe  of  Mana.sseh,  to 
head  the  movement  for  the  liberation  of  the 
Israelites,  and  promised  success  to  the  enter- 


prise. Gideon  overthrew^  the  altar  of  Baal 
and  collecfted  an  army  of  thirty-two  thou- 
sand Israelites.  The  Midianites  and  their 
allies,  connnanded  by  famous  leaders,  im- 
mediately took  the  field  to  subdue  the  re- 
bellious Hebrews.  Gideon  took  his  position 
on  Mount  Gilboa,  while  the  Arab  tribes 
occupied  the  vallej^  of  Jezreel  below.  As- 
sured of  vi(5torj%  Gideon  allowed  all  of  his 
men  to  depart  who  desired  to  do  so,  and 
twenty-two  thousand  immediately  retired, 
leaving  only  ten  thou.sand  to  face  the  foe. 
The  Hebrew  account  states  that  Jehovah 
ordered  Gideon  to  seledt  three  hundred  war- 
riors by  a  given  test,  and  to  hold  the  remain- 
der of  his  army  in  reserv^e.  Gideon  divided 
the  three  hundred  chosen  men  into  three 
bands,  with  which  he  made  a  night  attack  on 
the  camp  of  the  Midianites.  He  anned  his 
band  with  trumpets,  and  torches  enclcsed  in 
earthenware  pitchers.  At  a  given  signal 
each  of  his  men  blew  his  trumpet,  broke  his 
pitcher,  and  displayed  his  torch,  shouting: 
"The  Sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon!" 
The  Midianites,  aroused  from  their  sleep,  and 
utterly  surprised  and  panic-stricken,  turned 
their  swords  upon  each  other,  and  fled  to- 
ward the  Jordan,  leaving  their  camp  in  pos- 
session of  the  Israelites.  They  were  pursued 
by  the  remainder  of  Gideon's  arm}^  and  were 
utterly  exterminated,  scarcely  a  man  escap- 
ing across  the  Jordan.  This  great  and  de- 
cisive vicftory  utterly  broke  up  the  power  of 
the  Midianites  and  liberated  Israel  from  their 
oppressive  yoke.  The  Israelites,  in  grati- 
tude for  this  brilliant  vicftory,  offered  to  make 
Gideon  king,  but  he  refused  the  profTered 
dignity,  saying:  "Not  I,  nor  my  son,  but 
Jehovah  .shall  reign  over  you."  Gideon 
ruled  his  countrymen  for  many  years  after- 
ward as  Judge.  His  ride  was  not  fully 
beneficial  to  the  nation,  as  he  almost  openly 
encouraged  idolatrj'.  After  his  death  one 
of  his  sons,  named  Abimelech,  made  him- 
self King  of  Shechem  and  the  neighboring 
territory,  but  he  only  reigned  three  years, 
when  he  was  killed  by  a  woman  while  en- 
gaged in  the  siege  of  a  town  that  had  re 
fused  to  acknowledge  his  authority. 

The  next  Judge  was  Tola,  who  admini.'s 


CONQUEST   OF   CANAAN— THE  JUDGES. 


363 


tercel  the  government  for  twentj'-three  years, 
and  was  succeeded  by  Jair,  the  Gileadite, 
who  ruled  for  twenty-two  years.  These  two 
administrations  were  uneventful;  but  the 
Israelites  again  phniged  so  deeply  into  idol- 
atr>-  that  Jehovah  again,  it  is  said,  delivered 
them  into  the  power  of  their  enemies.  The 
two  and  a  half  Hebrew  tribes  east  of  the 
Jordan  were  subdued  by  the  Ammonites, 
who  held  them  in  bondage  for  eighteen 
years.  During  this  period  the  Ammonites 
often  crossed  the  Jordan  and  ravaged  the 
lands  of  Judah,  Benjamin  and  Ephraim.  The 
tribes  east  of  the  Jordan  selecfled  for  their 
leader  a  man  named  Jephthah,  the  chief  of  a 
band  of  outlaws  occupying  Mount  Gilead. 
Jephthah  defeated  the  Ammonites  in  a  great 
battle,  and  liberated  the  countrv-.  He  vowed 
at  the  beginning  of  his  campaign  that,  if 
Jehovah  would  give  him  the  vi(ftory,  he 
would  sacrifice  to  Him  the  first  living 
being  that  he  should  meet  at  the  door  of 
his  house  when  he  returned  home.  The 
first  who  met  him  on  his  return  home 
was  his  daughter,  whom  Jephthah,  feeling 
himself  bound  by  his  vow,  sacrificed  after 
allowing  her  the  respite  of  two  months 
which  she  requested.  This  sacrifice,  di- 
redlly  opposed  to  the  laws  of  Moses,  shows 
how  far  the  Hebrew  tribes  east  of  the  Jordan 
had  departed  from  the  teachings  of  the  great 
lawgiver.  Jephthah  judged  Israel  for  six 
years  after  his  great  vidtorj'  over  the  Am- 
monites, and  was  buried  on  Mount  Gilead. 

Ibzan,  the  Zebulunite,  who  was  the  next 
Judge,  encourage  more  extensive  inter- 
course with  the  neighboring  nations  by  mar- 
rying his  children  to  foreigners.  After  judg- 
ing Israel  .seven  j-ears,  Ibzan  was  succeeded 
by  Elon,  also  a  Zebulunite,  whose  judgeship 
lasted  ten  years  and  was  uneventful.  Hillel, 
the  Pirathonite,  the  next  Judge,  had  an  un- 
eventful term  of  eight  years,  and  is  identi- 
fied by  some  writers  with  Bedan,  whom 
Samuel  names  among  the  Judges. 

The  great  militarv  triumphs  of  the  Judges 
so  completely  broke  the  power  of"  the  Ca- 
naanites  that  they  are  no  more  heard  of. 
Still  the  Israelites  again  offended  Jehovah 
by  relapsing  into  idolatry,  for  which  we  are 


informed  He  gave  them  over  into  the  hands 
of  the  Philistines,  a  far  more  warlike  and  more 
powerful  enemy  than  any  they  had  hitherto 
encountered.  As  we  ha\-e  seen,  these  people 
occupied  the  strip  of  country  ^long  the  sea- 
coa.st  of  the  South  of  Palestine.  At  this 
time  they  conquered  the  whole  South  of  Pal- 
estine, reducing  the  Hebrew  tribes  of  vSimeon, 
Judah,  Benjamin  and  Dan  to  subjedlion,  and 
held  them  in  the  severest  bondage  for  forty 
years. 

At  this  time  Eli,  of  the  house  of  Ithamar, 
Aaron's  youngest  son,  was  Judge  of  Lsrael. 
Eli,  who  was  a  man  of  sincere  piety,  resided 
at  Shiloh,  with  the  tabernacle;  and  his  au- 
thority was  generally  acknowleged  by  the 
Hebrew  nation.  The  crimes  of  his  vicious 
and  profligate  sons  disgraced  the  priesthood, 
but  he  pa.ssed  them  over,  allowing  his  sons  to 
retain  their  sacred  offices.  A  prophet  warned 
Eli  that  Jehovah  would  puni.sh  him  for  his 
indulgence  to  his  sons,  that  they  would 
be  killed  for  their  wickedness,  and  that  the 
sacred  office  would  be  transferred  to  another 
family;  but  Eli  simply  remonstrated  with 
his  sons,  permitting  them  to  continue  in  their 
wickedness. 

During  Eli's  judgeship,  we  are  informed, 
Jehovah  raised  up  two  great  champions  for 
Israel — Samson  and  Samuel.  Samson  be- 
longed to  that  portion  of  the  tribe  of  Dan 
which  dwelt  to  the  westward  of  Judah.  It 
is  said  that  his  birth  had  been  foretold  by 
the  angel  of  Jehovah  to  his  parents,  and  that 
they  had  been  commanded  to  rear  the  child 
as  a  Nazarite,  to  keep  him  from  all  unclean 
food  and  strong  drink,  and  not  to  allow  a 
razor  to  be  applied  to  his  head.  This  child, 
it  was  predicfted,  was  to  accomplish  wonders 
for  his  countrymen  against  the  Philistines 
when  he  grew  to  manhood.  Samson  was 
the  Hercules  of  the  Israelites,  who  con- 
stantly warred  with  their  oppressors;  the 
sturdy  warriors  of  the  tribe  of  Dan  living 
in  a  fortified  camp  near  Kirjath-jearim, 
where,  we  are  told,  "the  spirit  of  Jehovah 
began  to  move  Samson  at  times."  Samson 
is  represented  to  us  as  possessing  more  than 
human  strength,  and  as  fearless  and  in- 
capable of  fatigue.     For  the  purpose  of  pro- 


364 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


voicing  the  Philistines,  he  asked  the  hand 
of  a  woman  of  Timnatli,  and  on  his  way  to 
seize  her,  it  is  said  that  he  killed  a  lion  by 
seizing  it  by  its  mouth  and  tearing  its  jaws 
apart.  He  left  the  dead  lion  by  the  way- 
side, and  told  no  one  of  his  exploit.  Shorth' 
afterward  returning  that  way,  he  observed 
that  a  swarm  of  bees  had  made  their  abode 
in  the  dead  lion's  carcass.  He  ate  the 
honey  found  there,  but  told  no  one.  At  his 
marriage  feast  he  propounded  a  riddle  to  his 
thirty  young  groomsmen,  the  riddle  to  be 
solved  during  the  week  of  the  marriage 
feast,  for  the  stake  of  thirty  tunics  and 
thirty  changes  of  raiment.  The  young  men 
induced  Samson's  wife  to  ask  her  husband 
the  answer  to  the  riddle,  by  threatening  to 
burn  her  and  her  family  if  she  refused. 
Samson,  always  subjedl  to  her  wiles,  told 
his  wife,  and  she  disclosed  it  to  her  kinsmen, 
the  Philistines,  who  solved  the  riddle  prop- 
erly on  the  appointed  day.  Samson,  at 
once  seeing  through  the  trick,  and  openly 
charging  the  Philistines  with  their  treach- 
ery, proceeded  to  the  Philistine  city  of 
Ascalon,  where  he- killed  thirty  men,  sent 
their  clothing  to  their  fellow-countrymen 
who  had  given  the  answer  to  the  riddle,  and 
returned  to  his  people.  His  wife  was 
given  to  one  of  his  groomsmen,  and  he  was 
refused  permission  to  see  her.  In  revenge 
for  this  wrong,  Samson  burned  the  stand- 
ing harvests  of  the  Philistines;  whereupon 
they  retaliated  by  burning  his  wife  and  her 
father.  He  avenged  this  cruelty  by  attack- 
ing them  and  slaying  many  of  them,  after 
which  he  took  refuge  in  the  territon.-  of 
Judah.  Thenceforth  Samson  was  continu- 
ally at  war  with  the  Philistines,  and  he  is 
represented  as  repeatedly  demonstrating  his 
wonderful  strength  by  a  series  of  remark- 
able exploits.  We  are  told  that  on  one  oc- 
casion "he  .slew  a  thousand  Philistines  with 
the  jaw-bone  of  an  ass." 

As  long  as  Samson  remained  true  to  his 
Nazarite's  vow  he  escaped  all  the  snares  set 
for  him,  but  he  ultimately  yielded  to  tempt- 
ation, and  this  brought  on  his  ruin.  Fall- 
ing in  love  with  a  Philistine  woman,  named 
Delilah,  living  in  the  valley  of  Sorek,  her 


countrymen  bribed  her  to  betray  her  lover, 
and  Samson  finally  yielded  to  her  entreat- 
ies and  informed  her  of  the  source  of  his 
strength  as  being  in  his  long  hair.  As  he 
lay  asleep  in  her  arms,  the  Philistines  stole 
in  upon  him,  cut  off  his  hair,  took  him 
prisoner,  put  out  his  eyes,  bound  him  in 
fetters,  and  took  him  to  Gaza,  where  they 
compelled  him  to  grind  the  prison-mill. 
When  Samson's  hair  grew  long  again  he 
recovered  his  former  strength.  Soon  after 
this  the  lords  and  chief  people  of  the  Phil- 
istines held  a  great  fea.st  in  the  temple  of 
Dagon,  at  Gaza,  and  brought  out  Samson 
to  entertain  them  with  feats  of  his  strength. 
It  is  said  that  they  then  allowed  him  to  rest 
between  two  pillars  supporting  the  roof  of 
the  court,  which,  like  the  court  itself,  was 
filled  with  people,  altogether  about  three 
thousand  in  number.  Wildly  praying  to 
Jehovah  for  strength  to  avenge  himself  upon 
his  enemies,  the  blind  champion  of  the  Is- 
raelites seized  the  two  pillars  in  his  arms 
and  bore  upon  them  with  all  his  strength. 
The  account  says  that  the  pillars  gave  wa}^ 
whereupon  the  house  fell,  killing  Samson 
and  the  whole  concourse  of  people.  "So 
the  dead  which  he  slew  at  his  death  were 
more  than  they  which  he  slew  in  his  life." 
His  Israelite  kinsmen  took  his  body  and  in- 
terred it  with  the  remains  of  his  fathers. 
Samson  is  generally  considered  the  thir- 
teenth of  the  Judges,  but  his  authority  ap- 
parently only  extended  over  his  own  tribe, 
that  of  Dan. 

Samuel  was  the  fifteenth  and  the  last 
Judge  of  Israel.  Like  Samson,  we  are  told, 
he  was  a  child  of  promise.  His  father,  El- 
kanah,  was  a  descendant  of  Korah,  and  be- 
longed to  the  tribe  of  Levi.  He  resided  at 
Ramathaim-zophim.  He  had  two  wives, 
Peniimah  and  Hannah.  The  first  of  these 
was  the  mother  of  several  children.  The 
family  attended  regularly  the  national  relig- 
ious festivals  at  Shiloh.  While  they  were 
fea.sting  upon  the  free-will  offering,  Elkanah 
bestowed  upon  Hannah  a  mark  of  his  affec- 
tion, thus  arou.sing  the  jealousy  of  Penin- 
nah,  who  reproached  Hainiah  so  bitterly 
that   she   retired    from    the   feast   weeping. 


COA'OrjCST    OF    CAXAAX—TIIE  jriHillS. 


36S 


Ilaniuih  Weill  lo  the  door  of  the  tabernacle 
and  praj-ed  silently  for  a  son,  whom  she 
vowed  to  de\-ote  to  Jeho\-ah  as  a  Nazarite. 
The  Hii,di  Priest,  Eli,  saw  her  lips  in  motion, 
and  thinking  that  she  had  drunken  at  the 
feast  rebuked  her  sharpl.\-.  vShe  assured  him 
that  she  was  stricken  with  sorrow,  and  was 
Ijewailing  her  griefs  before  Jehovah.  There- 
upon Eli  spoke  more  mildlj-  to  her,  bestowed 
upon  her  his  blessing,  and  implored  Jehovah 
to  grant  her  pra}-er.  She  returned  home  in 
a  happier  state  of  feeling,  and  in  due  time 
gave  birth  to  a  son  who  was  named  Samuel. 
His  mother  kept  him  initil  he  had  reached 
a  proper  age  to  be  separated  from  his  family, 
after  which  she  took  him  to  Shiloh,  where 
she  solemnly  dedicated  him  to  the  service  of 
Jehovah,  leaving  him  with  the  High  Priest. 
Hannah  afterwards  bore  her  husband  three 
sons  and  two  daughters.  Samuel  grew  up 
in  the  service  of  the  tabernacle,  gaining  the 
favor  of  Jehovah  and  his  Hebrew  country- 
men. We  are  told  that  when  Samuel  was 
still  quite  a  youth,  Jehovah  spoke  to  him 
in  the  night,  telling  him  of  His  design 
to  destroy  the  house  of  Eli,  and  to  de- 
prive it  of  the  office  of  High  Priest  in  pun- 
ishment for  the  sins  of  Eli's  sons  and  for 
his  own  indulgence  toward  them.  Thence- 
forth Samuel  was  a  prophet  of  Jehovah. 
All  his  predictions  are  said  to  have  been 
verified,  and  his  renown  and  his  influence 
over  his  countrj'men  increased  as  he  grew  up. 
The  favor  bestowed  upon  Samuel  by  Je- 
hovah inspired  the  Israelites  with  the  belief 
that  their  God  would  aid  them  to  cast  off 
the  Philistine  j-oke.  They  consequently 
arose  in  arms,  but  suffered  a  defeat  in  the 
hill  country  of  Benjamin,  a  little  north  of 
Jerusalem.  Eli's  sons,  Hophni  and  Phinehas, 
lirought  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  from  Shi- 
loh to  the  camp  of  the  Israelites,  thinking 
that  such  sacrilegious  u.se  of  the  Ark 
would  give  them  victory.  We  are  informed 
that  Jehovah  punished  this  sacrilege  by  per- 
mitting the  Philistines  to  defeat  the  Hebrews 
with  a  loss  of  tliirt)-  thousand  men.  Hophni 
and  Phinehas  were  both  among  the  slain,  and 
the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  Philistines.  Upon  hearing  of  this 
]— L'S.-U.  H. 


misfortune,  Eli,  who  was  then  sitting  at  the 
gates  of  the  tabernacle,  fell  backward  from 
his  seat,  broke  his  neck  and  died. 

The  Philistines  carried  the  Ark  in  triumph 
into  their  own  country,  but  the  Hebrew  rec- 
ord tells  us  that  Jehovah  chastised  them  so 
severely  by  means  of  a  severe  plague  that 
they  sent  the  sacred  Ark  to  Bethshemcsh. 
Excited  by  curiosity  the  men  of  Bethshe- 
mcsh opened  the  Ark  and  looked  into  it,  but 
Jehovah  put  50,070  of  them  to  death  in 
punishment  for  this  .sacrilege.  Appalled  at 
this  judgment,  those  who  survived  .sent  for 
the  men  of  Kirjath-jearira  to  take  the  Ark 
away.  These  people  took  it  to  their  own 
cit}-,  where  it  was  kept  in  the  house  of 
Aminidab,  a  Levite,  until  David  had  it  con- 
veyed to  Jerusalem. 

Samuel  was  Eli's  successor  as  Judge  of 
Lsrael,  and  his  authority  was  generally  ac- 
knowledged by  the  Hebrew  nation.  For 
twenty  years  after  the  loss  of  the  Ark,  the 
Israelites  were  sorely  oppressed  by  the 
Philistines.  At  the  end  of  this  time  Sam- 
uel summoned  the  nation  to  make  a  bold 
strike  for  their  deliverance  from  the  Philis- 
tine yoke ;  and  to  prepare  them  for  it  he  con- 
vened a  solemn  assembly  at  Mizpeh,  where 
the  Israelites  renewed  the  broken  covenant 
with  Jehovah,  amid  fasting  and  repentance 
for  their  past  transgres.sions.  Upon  hearing 
of  this  assembly  the  Philistines  sent  an 
army  to  disperse  it.  Samuel  incited  his 
countr>-men  to  attack  this  Philistine  force, 
and  it  is  said  that  the  Israelites  were  aided 
by  a  violent  storm  froin  heaven,  which  de- 
stroyed a  great  portion  of  the  hostile  army. 
The  Philistines  fled  in  dismay,  and  were 
pursued  by  the  Israelites,  who  slaughtered 
a  vast  number  of  them. 

This  great  Hebrew  victory  shattered  the 
power  of  the  Philistines  in  Palestine,  and 
firmly  established  Samuel's  authoritj'  over 
the  Israelites.  He  made  circuits  of  the 
country  to  administer  justice,  and  appointed 
his  sons,  Joel  and  Abiah,  as  his  a.ssistants 
in  the  government  of  the  nation.  Under 
Samuel's  administration,  the  Israelites  en- 
joj^ed  a  period  of  peace  and  prosperity  which 
they  had   never   before   known.     But   still 


366 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


tliej^  were  dissatisfied,  and  longed  for  a 
king  who  should  govern  them  in  peace  and 
lead  their  armies  to  vicflon,-  in  war.  Thej^ 
ascribed  their  past  misfortunes  to  their  want 
of  union  under  a  strong  central  government, 
and  feared  that  the  same  cause  might  sub- 
jec5l  them  to  similar  calamities  in  the  future. 
Samuel  vainly  remonstrated  with  them,  and 
tried  to  dissuade  them  from  their  determin- 
ation to  have  an  earthly  sovereign  to  gov- 


ern them,  reminding  them  that  Jehovah  was 
their  King.  But  they  were  deaf  to  all  his 
arguments  and  entreaties,  replying:  "We 
will  have  a  king  over  us."  We  are  told 
that  Jehovah  therefore  authorized  Samuel 
to  comply  with  the  demand  of  his  people; 
and  in  accordance  with  the  Divine  diredlions, 
Samuel  anointed  Saul,  the  son  of  Kish,  a 
Benjamite,  as  the  first  King  over  Israel,  B. 
C.  1095. 


SECTION    IV.— THE    UNITED    KINGDOM   OF   ISRAEL. 


AUL,  the  first  King  of  Israel, 
was  about  forty  5'ears  old  when 
he  ascended  the  throne.  The 
Book  of  Kings  describes  him 
as  ' '  taller  than  any  of  the  peo- 
ple," and  so  kingly  in  bearing  that  when 
Samuel  presented  him  to  the  people  as  their 
monarch,  they  hailed  him  with  rapturous 
shouts  of  ' '  God  save  the  king. ' '  He  pos- 
sessed all  the  vigor  of  his  race  and  tribe,  all 
their  courage  and  energ3^  but  was  impulsive 
and  vacillating,  and  possessed  a  temper 
so  utterlj'  uncontrollable  that  opposition 
aroused  him  to  a  condition  approaching 
madne.ss. 

The  choice  of  a  sovereign  from  the 
smallest  of  the  Hebrew  tribes  greath-  of- 
fended a  considerable  portion  of  the  nation, 
and  Samuel  thought  it  prudent  to  postpone 
the  solemn  public  installation  of  Saul  until 
this  opposition  could  be  allayed.  At  this 
jumfture,  Gilead,  the  Israelitish  territories 
east  of  the  Jordan,  suffered  an  invasion  from 
Nahash,  King  of  the  Ammonites.  Saul 
speedily  colledled  the  forces  of  Israel,  cro.ssed 
the  Jordan,  annihilated  the  Ammonites,  and 
rescued  Gilead.  The  valor  and  military 
ability  displayed  by  Saul  in  this  campagn 
utterly  silenced  the  opposition  to  him,  and 
his  authoritj'  was  acknowledged  with  enthu- 
siasm bj'  the  whole  Hebrew  nation. 

Samuel  continued  to  exercise  a  great  in- 
fluence over  the  affairs  of  the  Israelites.  He 
considered  the  king  simply  a  military  chief, 


destitute  of  power  to  interfere  with  the  old 
constitution  and  laws  bequeathed  to  the  na- 
tion bj'  Moses,  and  entirely  unlike  the  sov- 
ereigns of  the  neighboring  nations.  For 
some  time  Saul  accepted  vSamuel's  view  of 
the  powers  of  royalty,  and  submitted  to  the 
prophet's  influence;  but  his  ferocious  temper 
could  not  long  pennit  him  to  endure  this 
control,  and  Saul  began  to  resent  the  re- 
straint exercised  over  him  by  Samuel,  and 
desired  to  be  king  in  facft  as  well  as  in  name. 
Saul's  solemn  installation  as  King  of  Is- 
rael occurred  at  Gilgal  on  his  return  from 
his  triumphant  campaign  against  the  Am- 
monites; after  which  he  dismissed  the  Is- 
raelites to  their  homes,  and  kept  a  force  of 
only  three  thousand  men  in  the  field,  retain- 
ing two  thousand  under  his  own  command, 
and  placing  the  remaining  thousand  under 
his  son  Jonathan,  a  very  worthy  young  man. 
Jonathan  .surprised  and  took  the  Philistine 
stronghold  of  Gibeah,  in  the  land  of  Benja- 
min, relieving  that  tribe  of  a  constant  an- 
noyance. Thereupon  the  Philistines  set  a 
powerful  army  in  motion,  and  Saul  sum- 
moned the  forces  of  Israel  to  assemble  at 
Gilgal,  where  Samuel  was  to  join  him  and 
offer  a  solemn  sacrifice  to  Jehovah  as  the 
opening  adt  of  the  campaign.  The  Israel- 
ites assembled  at  the  appointed  time,  but 
Samuel  did  not  appear.  Saul  waited  for 
him  seven  days,  when,  seeing  that  the  peo- 
ple were  impatient,  he  seized  the  opportu- 
nity to  throw   off   entirely   the  control   of 


THE    UNITJU)    KINGDOM    OF   ISRAEL. 


Tfil 


Sanuicl  and  usurped  the  sacerdotal  power 
belonyiujj  to  tlie  High  Priest.  He  oflered 
the  sacrifice  himself,  thus  claiming  priestly 
as  well  as  kingly  authority.  Soon  after- 
ward Sanuiel  arrived,  and  inunediately  per- 
ceived that  Saul's  action  was  directed  at 
putting  the  Hebrew  monarchy  on  the  same 
level  as  those  of  the  neighboring  nations, 
giving  the  king  the  supreme  spiritual  power, 
as  well  as  the  chief  civil  authoritj-,  o^'er  the 
Hebrew  nation.  The  prophet  rebuked  Saul 
.sharply  for  his  sacrilegious  proceeding;  and 
in  the  name  of  Jehovah  told  him  that  the 
Divine  fa\-or  would  thenceforth  be  with- 
drawn from  him,  and  that  at  his  death 
the  ro3-al  dignity  would  be  transferred 
to  another  family.  The  bondage  of  the 
Philistines  bore  heavilj'  upon  the  Southern 
Hebrew  tribes,  whose  smiths  were  forbidden 
to  pursue  their  occupation,  in  consequence 
of  which  weapons  were  so  scarce  that  Saul 
found  only  six  hundred  armed  men  in  the 
entire  assembly  of  people.  Notwithstanding 
this  drawback,  he  advanced  northward  to 
Michmash  to  confront  the  foe;  while  Jona- 
than, accompanied  oidy  by  his  armor-bearer, 
surprised  the  camp  of  the  Philistines,  who, 
seized  by  a  panic,  turned  their  arms  against 
each  other,  and  fled.  Saul  immediately 
pursued  the  flying  foe,  and  was  joined  by 
all  the  Israelites  who  could  obtain  arms. 
He  soon  found  himself  at  the  head  of  ten 
thousand  men,  and  pursued  the  retreating 
Philistines  to  Beth-aven,  inflicting  frightful 
losses  upon  them. 

The  Philistines  retired  into  their  own  ter- 
ritory, and  did  not  molest  the  Israelites 
again  for  some  years.  During  this  time 
Saul  repulsed  the  attacks  of  the  Ammonites, 
the  Moabites,  the  Edomites,  and  the  Syr- 
ians of  Zobah,  who  in  succession  endeavored 
to  invade  the  Hebrew  dominions.  About  the 
same  time  the  Hebrew  tribes  east  of  the 
Jordan  conquered  the  nomadic  Arab  tribe 
of  the  Hagareens  and  extended  their  terri- 
tory in  the  direction  of  Damascus.  Con- 
scious that  the  security  of  his  kingdom 
depended  upon  its  defensive  power  against 
invasion,  he  made  great  exertions  to  organize 
a  standing  army,  which,  though  not  large, 


consisted  of  veterans  and  was  kept  in  a  high 
state  of  discipline  and  thorough  efficiency. 
He  assigned  the  command  of  this  army  to 
his  cousin  Abner,  the  son  of  Ner. 

The  High  Priest  Samuel,  now  venerable 
for  his  years,  came  to  Saul  and  ordered  him 
to  undertake  a  war  against  the  Amalekites, 
the  earliest  and  most  implacable  foes  of 
Israel.  Saul  immediately  took  the  field 
against  them  and  defeated  them,  but  diso- 
beyed the  prophet's  command  to  destro\- 
everything  he  captured,  carrj-ing  away  a 
vast  booty  and  sparing  Agag,  the  Amale- 
kite  king,  with  the  design  of  receiving  a 
ransom  for  him. 

Sanuiel  met  Saul  at  Gilgal  when  he  re- 
turned from  the  campaign,  and  severelj'  re- 
poached  him  for  his  disobedience  of  the  Di- 
vine connnand.  In  Jehovah's  name,  the 
prophet  pronounced  a  curse  upon  the  diso- 
bedient monarch,  telling  him  that  Jeho- 
vah had  rejected  him  from  that  day.  At 
the  same  time  Samuel  slew  Agag  with  his 
own  hand. 

Samuel  then  departed  from  Saul,  and  the 
breach  between  the  king  and  the  High 
Priest  of  the  nation  was  complete.  The 
Divine  protection,  it  is  said,  was  withdrawn 
from  Saul  thenceforth;  and  Samuel,  we  are 
told,  was  commanded  by  Jehovah  to  go  to 
Bethlehem  to  anoint  the  future  King  of 
Israel. 

Samuel  obeyed  the  Divine  command,  ac- 
cording to  the  Hebrew  account,  and  going 
to  Bethlehem  he  solenmly  anointed,  with 
.sacred  oil,  David,  the  youngest  and  most 
gifted  son  of  Jesse,  of  the  tribe  of  Judah. 
The  newly-anointed  King  of  Israel  was  de- 
scended from  Nahshon,  who  had  been  the 
chief,  or  prince,  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  in  the 
Wilderness,  and  also  from  Rahab  the  harlot 
of  Jericho  and  from  the  beautiful  Ruth. 
David  had  already  arrived  at  man's  estate, 
and  had  pro\-ed  his  courage  by  his  many 
successful  defenses  of  his  father's  flock 
against  the  bandits  and  the  wild  beasts  of 
that  region. 

After  the  breach  with  Samuel,  Saul  fell 
into  a  state  of  deep  melancholj',  amounting 
sometimes  to  madness,  and  which  only  the 


368 


AA'CIENT  HISTORY— THE    HEBREWS. 


music  of  David's  harp  could  alleviate;  David 
having  been  introduced  into  Saul's  palace 
through  the  secret  influence  of  vSamuel. 
Saul  cherished  a  wann  affedtion  for  David, 
conferring  honors  upon  him  and  making  him 
his  armor-bearer. 

The  war  with  the  Philistines  had  been  re- 
newed in  the  meantime,  and  the  armies  of 
Israel  and  Philistia  confronted  each  other 
in  the  South  of  Palestine.  The  Philistines 
brought  forward  a  champion  in  the  person 
of  the  giant  Goliath,  of  Gath.  No  Israel- 
ite had  courage  to  meet  him,  until  David, 
after  joining  the  anny,  offered  to  fight  him. 
Saul  sought  to  prevail  upon  David  not  to 
venture  upon  so  dangerous  a  proceeding,  but 
finding  him  determined  and  depending  upon 
Jehovah  for  vicflorj-,  agreed  to  the  encounter. 

It  is  said  that  David  was  armed  only  with 
his  shepherd's  sling,  in  the  use  of  which 
he  had  become  an  expert,  and  that  he  killed 
the  giant  with  a  stone  from  this  sling,  the 
stone  striking  him  on  the  forehead.  After 
killing  the  giant,  it  is  al.so  said  that  David 
cut  off  his  vidlim's  head  with  his  own  sword. 
Appalled  at  the  death  of  their  champion, 
the  Phili.stine  army  fled  in  di,smay,  and  was 
pursued  by  Saul's  forces  to  the  gates  of 
Gath  and  Ekron,  suffering  frightful  slaugh- 
ter during  the  retreat. 

Saul,  highly  delighted  with  the  prowess 
of  David,  gave  him  his  daughter  Michal  in 
marriage.  Saul's  son,  Jonathan,  entertained 
a  deep  and  permanent  affecftion  for  the 
youthful  hero.  But  .soon  afterward  the 
vacillating  Saul  suddenly  di.splaj'ed  a  deadlj' 
jealousy  of  his  young  son-in-law,  upon  hear- 
ing the  praises  which  were  lavished  upon 
him  on  account  of  his  great  feat  in  slaying 
the  giant  champion  of  the  Philistines. 
Thenceforth  Saul  sought  the  life  of  David, 
who  was  at  length  obliged  to  flee  from  the 
court  of  Saul,  and  to  seek  refuge  from  his 
father-in-law's  anger  by  fleeing  to  the  court 
of  the  King  of  Gath,  where  he  feigned  mad- 
ness, in  order  to  escape  the  vengeance  of  the 
Philistines.  Soon  afterward  he  became  the 
leader  of  a  band  of  outlaws,  living  for  some 
time  in  Moab,  and  then  establishing  him- 
self in  the  dens  and  caves  of  the  mountains 


in  the  region  of  the  wilderness  of  Judaea,  in 
the  territory  of  Judah. 

Samuel  died  about  this  time  at  Ramah,  at 
an  advanced  age,  and  was  deeply  mourned 
by  all  Israel.  After  Samuel's  death  Saul 
gave  full  vent  to  his  furious  temper.  He 
violently  persecuted  all  who  supported  the 
laws  of  Moses,  and  massacred  the  High 
Priest  Abimelech,  eighty-five  priests,  and 
all  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  of  Nob,  the 
residence  of  the  High  Priest.  Abiathar, 
the  .son  of  Abimelech  and  the  heir  to  the 
office  of  High  Priest,  escaped  the  massacre 
by  fleeing  to  David  for  protecflion. 

Saul  now  turned  his  anns  against  David, 
and  hunted  him  through  the  South  of  Pal- 
estine. On  two  occasions  David  liad  the 
king  within  his  power,  but  magnanimously 
spared  his  life.  He  was  finally  obliged  to 
take  refuge  with  Achish,  King  of  Gath, 
who  a.ssigned  him  the  city  of  Ziklag,  where 
he  resided  for  some  years,  leading  many  ex- 
peditions against  the  Amalekites,  the  ene- 
mies of  both  Israel  and  Philistia. 

The  war  between  the  Israelites  and  the 
Philistines  was  again  resumed,  and  Achish, 
King  of  Gath,  ordered  David  to  join  the 
Philistine  army  and  advance  against  Saul. 
David  was  forced  to  obey,  but  the  Philistine 
leaders,  suspicious  of  the  j^oung  Israelite 
refugee,  induced  the  king  to  order  him  to 
return  to  Ziklag.  The  Philistines  invaded 
the  Hebrew  territory;  and  in  a  great  battle 
on  Mount  Gilboa  the  Israelites  were  routed, 
and  Jonathan  and  two  others  of  Saul's  sons 
were  .slain,  and  Saul  himself,  being  severely 
wounded,  killed  himself  by  falling  on  his 
own  sword,  in  order  to  avoid  being  made 
pri.soner  by  the  vi(5lorious  Philistines,  B.  C. 
1055.  Saul  had  reigned  forty  ^ears  (B.  C. 
1095-1055). 

"Upon  hearing  of  the  death  of  Saul  and 
Jonathan,  David  returned  to  his  own  coun- 
try, and  was  acknowledged  as  king  bj'  his 
own  tribe  of  Judah;  while  all  the  other 
tribes  adhered  to  Ishbosheth,  the  only  sur- 
viving son  of  Saul,  whom  Abner  had  caused 
to  be  crowned  at  Mahanaim.  For  the  next 
seven  years  the  Hebrew  kingdom  was  rent 
by  a  sanguinarj-  civil  war.       When  Abner 


THE  I'Niri-.n  KiNcno.'if  or  israiu,. 


369 


deserted  to  the  side  of  David,  and  Ish- 
bosheth  was  assassinated  bj'  two  of  his 
guards,  the  whole  Hebrew  nation  acknowl- 
edged David  as  its  sovereign,  and  the  civil 
war  was  brought  to  a  close.  David  was 
solemnly  anointed  King  of  Israel  at  He- 
bron, his  capital,  B.  C.  1095. 

David  was  almost  thirty-eight  years  of 
age  when  he  began  to  reign  over  the  entire 
kingdom  of  Israel.  He  soon  proved  him- 
self a  great  warrior  and  conqueror.  His 
first  great  military  exploit  was  the  capture 
of  Jebus,  or  Jerusalem,  with  its  strong  for- 
tress. Mount  Zion,  from  the  Jebusites.  He 
made  this  city  the  capital  of  his  kingdom, 
and  likewise  the  center  of  the  Hebrew  wor- 
ship by  bringing  thither  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant.  He  organized  a  standing  army, 
set  up  a  splendid  court  at  his  capital,  pro- 
vided himself  with  a  large  harem,  or  se- 
raglio, after  the  usual  fashion  of  Oriental 
monarchs,  and  introduced  a  royal  magnifi- 
cence hitherto  unknown  in  I.srael.  He  is 
ranked  as  a  faithful  servant  of  Jehovah, 
whom  he  delighted  to  honor  and  worship. 
The  prophets  Gad  and  Nathan  were  inti- 
mate associates  of  David,  who  always  heard 
them  with  deference,  even  when  they  re- 
proached him  with  the  faults  of  his  public 
and  private  life. 

David  was  the  greatest  and  most  powerful 
monarch  that  ever  reigned  over  the  Hebrew 
nation.  He  extended  his  kingdom  in  every 
direction  by  successful  wars.  He  broke  the 
power  of  the  Philistines  by  conquering  their 
country  as  far  south  as  Gaza.  He  subdued 
Moab,  exterminating  two-thirds  of  its  popu- 
lation, and  compelling  the  remairiing  third 
to  pay  tribute.  He  conquered  the  Ammon- 
ites and  the  various  Syrian  kingdoms  be- 
tween the  Jordan  and  the  Euphrates,  includ- 
ing that  of  Damascus,  thus  extending  his 
dominions  eastward  to  the  Euphrates.  He 
also  subdued  Edom,  and  extended  the  He- 
brew territory  to  the  Red  Sea  and  the  fron- 
tier of  Eg3'pt.  Thus  David  founded  an 
empire  extending  from  the  Red  Sea  to  the 
Euphrates,  and  from  Phcenicia  and  the 
Mediterranean  to  the  Arabian  and  Syrian 
deserts.      He    .secured    an    important    and 


l)()wcrful  ally  in  Hiram,  King  of  Tyre,  who 
furnished  hiui  with  cedars  of  Lebanon  and 
with  workmen  and  artificers  for  the  con- 
struction f)f  the  splendid  palace  which  he 
creeled  at  Jerusalem. 

David  proved  himself  a  wise  and  benefi- 
cent sovereign.  He  thoroughly  organized 
the  Israelitish  army,  personally  superin- 
tended the  civil  administration,  inaugurated 
an  admirable  internal  sen'ice  for  the  de- 
spatch of  public  business,  and  revised  and 
settled  the  religious  institutions  upon  a  per- 
manent basis.  David  was  a  great  poet,  as 
well  as  a  successful  king  and  warrior,  as  is 
proven  by  the  Psalms,  or  h3'mns,  which  he 
composed,  and  which  have  ever  since  been 
ranked  among  the  most  soul-stirring  pro- 
ducftions  of  lyric  poetrj'. 

Says  a  certain  writer  concerning  David's 
poetry:  "  Great  as  was  the  military  glor)'  of 
David,  his  fame  with  later  times  is  derived 
from  his  psalms  and  songs.  He  was  the 
first  great  poet  of  Israel,  and  perhaps  the 
earliest  in  the  world.  The  freshness  of  the 
pastures  and  mountain-sides  among  which 
his  youth  was  passed,  the  assurance  of  Di- 
vine prote(5tion  amid  the  singular  and  ro- 
mantic incidents  of  his  varied  career,  the 
enlargement  of  his  horizon  of  thought  with 
the  magnificent  dominion  which  was  added 
to  him  in  later  life,  all  gave  a  richness  and 
depth  to  his  experience,  which  were  repro- 
duced in  sacred  melody,  and  found  their  fit- 
ting place  in  the  temple  .ser\-ice;  and  every 
form  of  Jewish  and  Christian  worship  since 
his  time  has  been  enriched  by  the  poetry  of 
David." 

David  had  designed  building  a  gorgeous 
temple  to  Jehovah  at  Jerusalem,  but  is  said  to 
have  been  forbidden  to  do  .so  by  Divine  com- 
mand, because  his  hands  had  been  stained 
by  blood.  The  temple  was  to  be  built  by  a 
man  of  peace,  and  was  therefore  to  be  deferred 
until  the  reign  of  his  son  and  successor. 
David  merely  confined  his  efforts  to  securing 
a  location  and  the  collection  of  materials  for 
the  grand  sacred  edifice. 

David  sometimes  yielded  to  temptation 
and  gave  way  to  the  baser  passions  of  his 
nature.     During  the  siege  of  Rabbah,  the 


370 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


Ammonite  capital,  David  offended  Jeho- 
vah by  seducing  the  beautiful  Bathsheba, 
the  wife  of  Uriah,  the  Hittite,  one  of  his 
captains,  and  taking  her  to  himself,  giving 
her  husband  a  dangerous  command  in  which 
he  was  treacherously  slain.  For  this  crime 
David  was  severely  repro\'ed  b}'  the  prophet 
Nathan,  and  we  are  told  that  he  humbly 
confessed  his  sin  and  that  his  remorse  and 
repentance  obtained  for  him  the  pardon  of 
Jehovah.  He  took  Bathsheba  to  his  harem, 
but  the  child  which  she  bore  him  died  in 
accordance  with  the  predidtion  of  the 
prophet  Nathan.  Another  child  bom  to 
Bathsheba  was  the  illustrious  successor  of 
David. 

The  prosperity  of  David's  reign  was  inter- 
rupted by  domestic  calamities,  due  direcftly 
to  the  evil  of  polj-gani}',  which  David  had 
introduced  into  the  kingdom.  His  sons  by 
different  wives  tonnented  his  later  years  by 
their  jealousies  and  crimes.  Amnion,  his 
eldest  son,  was  slain  b)-  Absalom  in  revenge 
for  a  gross  insult  offered  to  his  sister.  As 
soon  as  Absalom  was  pardoned  and  received 
into  favor  he  conspired  to  dethrone  his  in- 
dulgent father,  and  raising  the  standard  of 
rebellion,  forced  the  king  to  flee  from  Jeru- 
salem and  take  refuge  in  the  country  east  of 
the  Jordan;  but  a  large  armj'  under  Joab 
and  his  brothers  took  the  field  against  Ab.sa- 
lom  and  utterly  routed  his  forces  in  the 
forests  of  Ephraim,  and  the  unfortunate 
prince,  in  his  endeavors  to  escape,  was 
entangled  by  his  long  hair  in  the  branches 
of  an  oak,  being  slain  in  that  situation  by 
Joab,  contrary  to  the  express  command  of 
David,  who  was  fondly  attached  to  this  re- 
bellious son.  Adonijah  also  plotted  to  de- 
throne his  father  and  rose  in  rebellion,  but 
atoned  for  this  crime  with  his  life.  David 
thereupon  gave  orders  that  Solomon,  his 
son  with  Bathsheba,  should  be  proclaimed 
king.  The  northern  tribes  revolted  under  a 
leader  named  Sheba,  but  were  soon  subdued, 
and  the  leader  was  punished  with  death. 
After  a  glorious  but  troubled  reign  of  forty 
years,  of  which  thirty-three  were  spent  in 
Jerusalem,  David  died  B.  C.  1015,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-eight  years,   leaving  to  his 


people  the  proudest  name  in  their  historj', 
and  to  his  successor  a  flourishing  empire. 

Solomon — David's  son  with  Bathsheba, 
and  the  favorite  of  his  father — succeeded  the 
illustrious  warrior  and  psalmist  on  the 
throne  of  Israel.  He  began  his  reign  by 
putting  Adonijah,  his  rebel  half-brother,  to 
death.  It  is  said  that  Jehovah  appeared  to 
him  in  a  dream  and  promised  to  give  him 
whatever  he  should  ask,  and  that  Solomon 
chose  wisdom,  and  not  only  was  this  granted, 
but  also  riches,  honor  and  length  of  days, 
on  condition  of  his  continued  obedience  to 
the  Divine  command.  Solomon's  reign  was 
the  most  splendid  period  of  Jewi.sh  histor\-. 
He  began  his  reign  in  peace,  and  all  the  neigh- 
boring nations  acknowledged  his  dignity; 
and  the  reigning  Pharaoh  of  Egypt  gave  him 
his  daughter  in  marriage,  and  she  received 
as  her  dowry  a  part  of  Canaan  which  had 
been  conquered  by  that  king.  The  Israel- 
ites were  now  the  ruling  people  in  Syria. 
Many  kings  were  tributary  to  the  Hebrew 
monarch,  and  the  court  of  Jerusalem  rivaled 
those  of  Nineveh  and  Memphis  in  its  glory 
and  magnificence.  The  fame  and  wis- 
dom of  Solomon  secured  for  him  the  alli- 
ances of  the  most  powerful  Eastern  mon- 
archs;  and  thus  tranquillity  was  established, 
and  his  entire  reign  was  one  of  peace  and 
prosperity. 

Solomon's  enterprise  and  luxun,-  gave  a 
wonderful  impulse  to  commerce.  Hiram, 
King  of  Tyre,  was  as  warm  a  friend  of  Solo- 
mon as  he  had  been  of  his  father,  David; 
and  cedars  were  brought  from  Lebanon  for 
the  constru(5tion  of  the  great  Temple  and  a 
palace  at  Jerusalem.  Through  his  alliance 
with  Hiram,  Solomon  was  allowed  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  Tyrian  trade;  and  to  facilitate 
commercial  intercourse  between  Central  and 
Western  Asia,  he  founded  two  cities  in  the 
Syrian  desert  which  became  great  empori- 
ums for  the  caravan  trade — Tadmor,  (after- 
wards Palmyra),  and  Baalath  (after^^'ards 
Baalbec,  or  Heliopolis).  Says  the  Book  of 
Kings:  ' '  He  founded  Baalath  and  Tadmor  in 
the  desert. ' '  Solomon  akso  opened  a  lucrative 
trade  with  Egypt,  and  by  the  influence  of 
the  reigning  Pharaoh,  his  father-iu-law,  he 


PHOENICIAN   EMBASSY   AT  THE   COURT   OI-    SOLOMON. 


THE    UMITED    KINGDOM    OF   ISRAEL. 


371 


obtained  from  the  Edomites  the  port  of 
Ezion-geber  (now  Akaba),  a  convenient 
harbor  on  the  Gulf  of  Akaba,  at  the  north- 
€rn  end  of  the  Red  Sea,  where  he  construdled 
a  great  fleet  of  merchant  vessels,  and  whence 
bis  subjects,  with  the  aid  of  the  experienced 
mariners  of  Tyre,  carried  on  a  lucrative 
traffic  with  the  rich  countries  of  Southern 
Asia  and  Africa.  Through  these  various 
channels  of  commerce,  the  rarest  produdls 
of  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa  were  poured 
into  Jerusalem.     Gold  and  precious  stones, 


sandals  and  spices  from  India,  silver  from 
Spain,  ivory-  from  Africa,  and  gold  from 
Ophir,  increased  the  wealth  and  luxury  of 
the  court  of  the  great  Hebrew  monarch. 
Horses  from  Egypt,  now  first  introduced 
into  Palestine,  filled  the  royal  stables;  and 
by  tribute  from  the  dependent  monarchs,  as 
well  as  by  commerce,  a  constant  stream  of 
gold  and  silver  flowed  into  Palestine.  Solo- 
mon was  the  first  to  introduce  horses  and 
war-chariots  into  Israel,  and  these  were  pro- 
cured from  Egypt,  from  which  linen-yarn  and 
cotton  manufadtures  were  likewise  brought 
into  his  kingdom. 

Solomon's  greatest  work  was  the  grand 
Temple  to  Jehovah,  which  he  erecfled  on 
Mount  Moriah  at  Jerusalem,  in  which  the 
Ark  of  the  Covenant  was  thenceforth  kept, 
and  which  has  become  famous  as  the  sacred 
spot  towards  whicii  the  prayers  of  Israelites, 
though  for  many  centuries  dispersed  in  every 
portion  of  the  world,  have  ever  since  been 
directed.  The  precincfts  of  the  Temple  in- 
cluded apartments  for  the  priests  and  towers 
for  defense;  and  it  has  been  said  that  the 
different  purposes  of  forum,  fortress,  univer- 
sity and  sancfluarj^  were  united  in  this  im- 
mense and  magnificent  national  edifice.  Sol- 
omon enlisted  the  superior  skill  of  the  Phoe- 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


nicians  in  wood  and  metal  work  in  his 
ser\-ice  in  the  erecftion  of  the  Temple. 
His  warm,  roj-al  friend  and  ally,  Hiram, 
King  of  Tj-re — who  was  half  Tyrian  and 
half  Israelite — was  the  chief  architedl  and 
sculptor,  and  furnished  the  Hebrew  monarch 
with  cedars  from  Lebanon  for  the  wood-work 
and  witk  skilled  workmen  to  build  the  grand 
strudture.  Seven  and  a  half  years  were  oc- 
cupied in  the  ere(?lion  of  the  splendid  edifice, 
and  the  costliness  of  its  materials  was  only 
surpassed  by  the  beauty  of  its  workman- 
ship, all  the  resources  of  wealth  and  ingenu- 
ity being  expended  on  the  magnificent 
strucfture.  When  the  work  was  completed 
it  was  solemnly  dedicated  to  Jehovah;  and 
the  Feast  of  the  Dedication  brought  to  Jeru- 
salem an  immense  multitude  from  both  ends 
of  the  Hebrew  dominions — "from  Hamath 
to  the  river  of  Egypt. "  It  is  .said  that  on 
this  occasion  the  Shekinah,  or  cloud  of 
glor>'  hovering  over  the  splendid  edifice,  an- 
nounced the  visible  presence  of  Jehovah. 
This  ev^ent  is  of  such  importance  as  a  turning 
point  in  Jewish  histor>'  as  to  mark  the  com- 
mencement of  their  connedled  record  of 
months  and  years.  Solomon  also  built  a 
magnificent  palace  opposite  Mount  Moriah, 
on  which  the  Temple  was  erecfted,  and  fur- 
nished it  with  unrivaled  splendor. 

Solomon's  early  years  were  marked  by  all 
the  virtues  which  could  adorn  a  prince. 
Humbly  con.scious  of  the  great  duties  as- 
signed him,  and  of  the  insufficiency  of  his 
powers,  he  preferred  wisdom  to  long  life  or 
wealth  or  kingly  dominion,  and  was  re- 
warded with  the  possession  of  even  what  he 
had  not  asked  for.  His  wi.sdom  exceeded 
that  of  all  the  philosophers  and  learned  men 
of  the  East,  and  his  Proverbs  are  classed 
among  the  wisest  maxims  of  antiquity. 
His  knowledge  of  natural  historj%  improved 
\>y  the  collections  of  rare  plants  and  strange 
animals,  which  he  obtained  from  every 
quarter  of  the  world,  was  regarded  as  mirac- 
ulous. All  monarchs  sought  Solomon's  al- 
liance and  friendship;  and  the  Queen  of 
Sheba,  whose  dominion  is  supposed  to  have 
been  in  the  modern  Abys.sinia,  or  Soutli- 
we.stern  Arabia,  and  who  had  heard  of  his 


fame  and  wisdom,  came  to  visit  him  from  a 
far  country. 

But  Solomon's  character  was  corrupted 
by  prosperitj-.  He  had  introduced  the 
licentious  luxury  of  an  Oriental  court  into 
the  Holy  City  of  David,  and  his  harem, 
or  seraglio,  was  vastly  augmented,  so  that 
it  reached  a  point  which  has  no  parallel, 
as  we  are  told  that  Solomon  had  seven 
hundred  wives  and  three  hundred  concu- 
bines. His  commerce  was  a  monopoly  of 
the  government  and  did  not  benefit  the 
people.  His  enormous  and  expensive  court 
was  maintained  by  taxes  so  excessive  as  to 
impoverish  the  nation  and  arouse  general 
discontent.  His  great  public  works  with- 
drew large  numbers  of  men  from  the  tillage 
of  the  soil,  and  from  the  proper  channels  of 
industr\-,  thus  lessening  the  resources  of 
the  nation.  The  luxury  and  sensualitj'  of 
the  court  had  a  corrupting  influence  upon 
the  nation,  and  the  people  were  estranged 
from  the  ancient  faith  by  the  encouragement 
given  heathen  religions  by  their  luxurious 
and  sensual  monarch.  Seduced  by  his 
many  "strange  wives,"  who  were  taken 
from  all  the  surrounding  nations,  Solomon 
not  only  permitted  them  their  idolatrous 
worship,  but  even  participated  in  the  rites 
of  their  impious  and  licentious  idolatry', 
and  forsook  Jehovah  to  whose  glory  he 
had  erected  the  magnificent  sandluarj'  on 
Mount  Moriah.  Then  we  are  told  enemies 
arose  against  him  on  all  sides,  and  the  sub- 
ject kingdoms  arose  in  revolt.  Rezon,  King 
of  Damascus,  threw  off  the  Hebrew  yoke. 
Hadad  endeavored  to  restore  the  indepen- 
dence of  Edom,  but  was  defeated  and  com- 
pelled to  flee  to  Egypt.  The  tribes  of 
Ephraim  and  Manasseh  almost  broke  out 
into  open  rebellion;  but  the  attempt  was  dis- 
covered, and  Jeroboam,  the  leader  in  the 
conspiracy,  was  obliged  to  flee  to  Egypt, 
where  he  found  refuge  at  the  court  of  King 
Shishak.  vSolomon  died  in  B.  C.  975,  after 
a  reign  of  forty  years,  like  those  of  Saul 
and  David. 

The  glory  of  Solomon's  reign  dazzled  the 
Hebrew  nation  and  silenced  all  discontent, 
but  when  he  was  succeeded  on  the  throne 


77//-;    AVX(,7)(XU    OF   ISRAEf.. 


373 


by  his  son  RkhorOam,  the  smolhcrcd  dis- 
satisfaction assumed  the  form  of  open  rebell- 
ion. Rehoboam,  instead  of  f[uietin;4  his 
subjecfls  bj'  necessary  reforms,  exasperated 
them  by  his  haughty  refusal  to  lessen  their 
burdens.  Ten  of  the  twelve  tribes  therefore 
at  once  revolted,  under  the  leadership  of 
Jekoboaji;  and  the  Hebrew  kingdom, which 
had  cut  such  a  grand  figure  under  David 
and  Solomon,  was  rent  in  twain,  B.  C.  975. 
This  secession  and  successful  revolution  is 


known  as  the  "  Revolt  of  the  Ten  Tribes." 
Thenceforth  there  were  two  Hebrew  states 
— the  Kingdom  o/Judah,  embracing  the  two 
tribes  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  which  remain- 
ed true  to  the  House  of  David  represented  by 
Rehoboam  and  his  successors,  whose  capi- 
tal was  Jerusalem;  and  the  k'higdom  of  Israel, 
comprising  the  ten  revolted  tribes  governed 
by  Jeroboam  and  his  successors,  who  were 
idolaters,  and  whose  capital  at  first  was 
Shechem. 


SECTION    v.— THE    KINGDOM    OF    ISRAEL. 


IKE  Kingdom  of  Israel,  estab- 
lished by  the  Northern  tribes 
under  Jeroboam,  extended 
|K^i\i3^  •  from  the  borders  of  Damascus 
to  within  ten  miles  of  Jerusa- 
lem, including  all  the  Hebrew  territory' 
east  of  the  Jordan,  and  held  Moab  as  a  trib- 
utarj'.  It  had  far  the  more  extensive  and 
fertile  territorj-,  and  twice  the  population  of 
Judah;  but  its  capital  was  far  inferior  to 
Jerusalem,  alike  in  strength,  beaut\'  "or 
sacred  association.  Its  successive  capitals 
were  Shechem,  Tirzah  and  Samaria. 

Jeroboam,  the  first  monarch  of  the  new 
Kingdom  of  Israel,  in  order  to  sever  the 
most  powerful  tie  binding  the  people  to  the 
House  of  David,  made  golden  calves  for 
idols,  setting  up  two  national  sanctuaries, 
one  at  Dan  and  the  other  at  Bethel,  with 
idolatrous  emblems,  saying:  "It  is  too 
much  for  you  to  go  to  Jerusalem;  behold 
thy  gods,  O  Israel,  which  brought  thee  up 
out  of  the  land  of  Egypt ! "  A  new  priest- 
hood was  instituted  in  opposition  to  that  of 
the  Levites,  whereupon  manj-  Levites  and 
other  faithful  adherents  of  the  religion  of  Je- 
hovah migrated  into  the  Kingdom  of  Judah. 
The  people  of  the  Northern  kingdom  fell 
into  the  snare  set  for  them  by  their  sovereign. 
A  succession  of  prophets,  some  of  them  the 
greatest  in  Hebre\\'  histors',  stro\e  to  keep 
the  people  faithful  to  Jehovah,  but  the  taint 
of   idolatrj'    had    become   so   deeph'  rooted 


into  the  national  life  that  it  could  not  be 
eradicated.  In  the  time  of  Elijah  only 
seven  thousand  were  left  who  had  not 
"bowed  the  knee  unto  Baal;"  and  even 
these  were  not  known  by  the  prophet,  being 
forced  by  persecution  to  hide  their  religion. 
The  Kings  of  Israel  belonged  to  nine 
diiferent  dynasties,  only  two  of  which,  tho.se 
of  Omri  and  Jehu,  occupied  the  throne  for 
any  considerable  time.  All  but  a  few  of  the 
nineteen  kings  had  short  reigns,  and  eight 
met  with  violent  deaths.  The  kingdom  was 
repeatedly  at  war  with  Judah,  Damascus 
and  Ass^-ria.  Jeroboam  was  aided  in  his 
war  with  Judah  by  his  friend  and  protecftor 
in  his  exile,  Shishak,  King  of  Egypt.  Jero- 
boam's reign  of  twenty-two  years  was  pa.ssed 
in  almost  constant  war  with  Judah.  He  died 
in  B.  C.  953;  and  his  son  and  successor 
Nad.\b,  after  a  reign  of  two  years,  was  mur- 
dered by  Baash.\,  the  commander  of  the 
army,  who  then  usurped  the  throne,  Baa- 
sha  removed  the  capital  to  Tirzah.  He  was 
grossl}'  addicted  to  idolatry.  The  remnant 
of  the  worshipers  of  Jehovah  retired  from 
Israel  and  settled  in  Judah,  being  attracted 
thither  by  the  piety  of  its  king,  Asa.  To 
check  this  defedtion,  Baasha  made  war  upon 
Judah,  and  built  the  fortress  of  Ramali,  by 
which  he  designed  holding  the  Jewish  fron- 
tier, but  was  forced  to  desist  by  Ben-hadad 
of  Damascus,  whose  alliance  had  been 
bouijht  bv  A.sa. 


374 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


Baasha  died  in  B.  C.  930,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  his  son,  Elah,  who,  while  intoxi- 
cated, was  murdered  by  Zimri,  who  usurped 
the  throne,  but  was  not  acknowledged  by 
the  army,  which  set  up  its  commander, 
Omri.  a  civil  war  of  seven  years  ensued, 
and  Zimri,  being  defeated,  shut  himself  up 
in  his  palace,  which  he  set  on  fire,  himself 
perishing  in  the  flames.  Omri  began  to 
reign  B.  C.  929.  At  first  he  had  a  rival 
named  Tibni,  whose  claim  was  supported  by 
half  the  people,  but  Omri  overcame  him  and 
reigned  until  B.  C.  918.  Omri  built  the 
strong  city  of  Samaria  and  made  it  his  capi- 
tal. He  made  war  on  Damascus,  but  was 
obliged  to  conclude  a  humiliating  peace. 

The  next  king  was  Ahab,  who  strength- 
ened himself  by  marrying  Jezebel,  the 
daughter  of  Ethbaal,  King  of  Tyre  and 
High  Priest  of  Astarte;  and  the  result  of 
this  alliance  was  the  introducftion  of  the 
Phoenician  religion  into  Israel.  Near  the 
end  of  this  century  the  prophet  Elijah  came 
to  denounce  upon  the  king  and  people  of 
Lsrael  the  Divine  punishment  for  their  sins, 
and  a  famine  for  three  years  devastated  the 
kingdom.  At  its  close  Elijah  offered  sacri- 
fice on  Mount  Carmel,  and  the  priests  of  Baal 
were  slaughtered,  which  was  regarded  as  a 
vindication  of  Jehovah's  power.  In  the  lat- 
ter part  of  his  reign  Ahab  waged  a  success- 
ful war  with  Damascus  and  reestablished 
the  independence  of  Israel.  Three  years  of 
peace  followed.  About  B.  C.  897  Ahab  re- 
newed the  war  with  Damascus,  by  miiting 
with  Jehoshaphat,  King  of  Judah,  in  an 
effort  to  seize  the  strong  frontier  of  Ramoth- 
Gilead,  but  in  the  battle  which  followed  the 
allied  army  was  routed  and  Ahab  was 
killed. 

Ahaziaii,  the  son  of  Ahab,  became  his 
successor,  and  reigned  a  little  more  than  a 
year,  during  which  Moab  revolted.  Jeho- 
ram,  Ahaziah's  brother  and  successor,  con- 
tinued the  alliance  with  Judah.  He  abol- 
ished the  worship  of  Baal,  though  he  ad- 
hered to  the  idolatry  of  Jeroboam.  He 
waged  war  with  Moab,  and  was  joined  in 
the  struggle  by  Jehoshaphat  and  by  the 
King  of  Edom,  the  va.ssal  of  the  King  of 


Judah.  We  are  told  that  the  allied  army 
was  miraculously  supplied  with  water,  and 
that  the  Moabites  met  with  a  decisive  de- 
feat, after  which  Jehoram  ravaged  "the 
land  of  Moab  with  fire  and  sword, ' '  but 
his  cruelties  caused  the  King  of  Judah  to 
desert  his  alliance  and  return  to  his  own 
kingdom.  Before  the  end  of  his  reign  the 
worship  of  Baal  was  restored  in  Israel.  Je- 
horam renewed  the  war  with  the  Syrians  of 
Damascus  by  seizing  Ramoth-Gilead.  Be- 
ing wounded  in  the  battle  with  the  Syrians, 
he  went  to  Jezreel  to  be  healed,  and  was 
there  visited  by  his  ally,  Ahaziah,  King  of 
Judah.  During  his  stay  at  Jezreel,  Jehu 
was  proclaimed  king  hy  the  army.  Jehu 
went  to  Jezreel,  and  slew  both  Jehoram  and 
Ahaziah,  after  which  he  caused  Jezebel, 
Ahab's  wicked  widow,  to  be  thrown  from 
the  walls  of  Jezreel,  thus  exterminating  all 
of  Ahab's  family,  in  accordance  with  the 
prophecy  of  Elijah. 

Jehu  began  to  reign  B.  C.  884.  He  vio- 
lently suppressed  the  worship  of  Baal,  but 
retained  the  idolatry  of  Jereboam.  Hazael 
of  Damascus  deprived  Jehu  of  his  provinces 
east  of  the  Jordan,  and  at  one  time  he  paid 
tribute  to  Shalmaneser  II.  of  Assyria,  the 
Black  Obelisk  King.  Jehoahaz,  Jehu's 
son,  became  king  B.  C.  856,  and  under  him 
the  kingdom  of  Israel  was  still  further 
weakened  by  Syrian  conquests,  the  King 
of  Damascus  even  forcing  Jehoahaz  to  limit 
the  strength  of  his  standing  army.  Jeho- 
ash,  the  son  of  Jehoahaz,  became  king  B. 
C.  839,  and  was  a  vigorous  and  warlike 
monarch.  He  defeated  Ben-hadad  III.  of 
Damascus  in  three  successive  engagements, 
and  re-conquered  a  part  of  the  territory 
wrested  from  Israel.  He  likewise  defeated 
Amaziah,  King  of  Judah,  and  entered  Jeru- 
salem in  triumph.  He  was  succeeded  by 
his  son,  Jeroboam  II.  B.  C.  825.  This 
king  raised  Israel  to  the  highe.st  piimacle  of 
power  and  glory.  He  conquered  Moab 
and  Amnion,  thus  recovering  all  the  terri- 
tory lost  by  Israel  east  of  the  Jordan,  and 
attacked  Damascus,  which  had  been  weak- 
ened by  the  sudden  ri.se  of  A.ssyria,  adding 


THE    KINC.DOM    OF  JUDAH. 


375 


&  large  portion  of  the  Syrian  territory-  to  the 
Kingdom  of  Israel. 

Zachariah,  the  son  of  Jeroboam  II.,  who 
succeeded  his  father  about  B.  C.  772,  was 
assa.ssinated  .six  months  later  hy  Shallum, 
who  thus  put  an  end  to  the  house  of  Jehu 
and  usurped  the  throne  of  Israel,  but  was 
himself  murdered  after  a  reign  of  little  over 
a  month  by  Menahem,  who  became  his 
successor.  Menahem  invaded  the  Assyrian 
territory  east  of  the  Euphrates  and  took 
Thapsacus,  but  the  Assj'rian  king  defeated 
him  and  reduced  him  to  tribute.  In  B.  C. 
762  Menahem  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Pe- 
KAHiAH,  who  was  murdered  by  Pekah,  one 
of  his  generals,  who  then  usurped  the  throne, 
B.  C.  760. 

Pekah's  reign  of  thirty-three  years  was 
marked  by  a  .series  of  calamities.  He  formed 
an  alliance  with  Rezin,  King  of  Damascus, 
to  protedl  his  kingdom  against  Assyria  and 
to  conquer  Judah.  The  allied  armies  of 
Pekah  and  Rezin  then  invaded  Judah  and 
reduced  that  kingdom  to  great  extremities; 
but  Ahaz,  King  of  Judah,  called  in  the  aid 
of  Tiglath-Pileser  II.,  King  of  As.syria,  who 
came  to  the  rescue  of  Judah  and  forced  Pe- 
kah to  make  peace.  The  Assyrian  monarch 
again  invaded  Israel,  ravaged  its  provinces 
east  of  the  Jordan,  and  carried  the  inhabi- 
tants captive  to  Assyria. 

Pekah  was  assassinated  by  Hoshea,  who 
then  usurped  the  throne,  B.  C.  730.  Hoshea 
was  the  last  King  of  Israel.  That  mon- 
arch 3^  was  now  rapidly  Hearing  its  end. 
Hoshea  vainly  endeavored  to  suppress  idol- 
atry'. He  began  to  reign  as  a  tributary  of 
Assyria,  but  soon  renounced  his  allegiance 


to  the  Assyrian  monarch  and  entered  into 
an  alliance  with  ligypt  to  recover  his  coun- 
try's independence.  Thereupon  Shalmaneser 
IV.,  King  of  As.syria,  invaded  Israel,  overran 
the  countrj'  and  besieged  Samaria,  its  capi- 
tal, which  held  out  heroically  for  two  years, 
but  was  taken  by  Sargon,  Shalmanezer's 
successor;  and  with  its  capture  ended  the 
Kingdom  of  Israel,  after  having  lasted  t\vo 
hundred  and  fifty-five  j-ears  (B.  C.  975-721). 
In  accordance  with  the  policy  of  the  Assyr- 
ian monarchs,  the  inhabitants  of  the  con- 
quered kingdom  were  carried  captive  to  re- 
mote portions  of  the  Assyrian  Empire;  and 
with  the  ' '  Assyrian  Captivity ' '  the  history 
of  the  "'ten  tribes"  is  ended  forever,  B.  C. 
721. 

The  Israelite  territorj^  remained  depopu- 
lated until  Esar-haddon,  King  of  Assyria, 
Sargon's  grandson  and  second  successor,  in 
the  seventh  century  before  Christ,  colonized 
this  fertile  region  with  Babylonians,  Susia- 
niaus  and  others.  These  strangers  brought 
their  idolatrous  worship  with  them.  The  de- 
population of  the  countrj-  rendered  it  so  deso- 
late that  for  a  time  wild  beasts  multiplied  in 
the  cities.  The  new  settlers  considered  them- 
selves free  to  ser\'e  their  own  national  gods, 
and  their  religion  was  a  strange  mixture  of 
the  worship  of  Jehovah  with  their  own 
polytheism,  which  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
describe  thus:  "They  feared  Jehovah  and 
serv^ed  their  own  gods."  The  descend- 
ants of  these  colonists  were  known  in  the 
later  Jewish  history  as  Samaritans,  and  were 
the  most  inveterate  enemies  of  the  Hebrew 
race.  We  are  told  that  ' '  the  Jews  had  no 
dealings  with  the  Samaritans." 


SECTION    VI.— THE    KINGDOM    OF   JUDAH. 


HE  Kingdom  of  Judah  occupied 
the  southern  and  least  fertile 
part  of  the  Holy  Land.  It 
began  its  separate  national  ex- 
istence at  the  same  time  with 
Israel,  but  sur\-ived  that  kingdom  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-fi\-e  years.     It  embraced  the 


two  tribes  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  with  great 
numbers  of  refugees  from  the  ten  revolted 
tribes,  who  willingly  sacrificed  home  and 
lands  for  the  religion  of  Jehovah.  The 
people  were  thus  closely  united  in  bonds  of 
common  interest  iji  the  wonderful  traditions 
of  the  past  and  the  hopes  for  the  future. 


376 


ANCIENT   HISTORY.— THE    HEBREW'S. 


Though  territorially  smaller  and  numerically 
weaker  than  the  Kingdom  of  Israel,  Judah 
was  really  the  stronger  and  more  important 
kingdom  of  the  two.  Its  inhabitants  were 
thoroughly  convinced  that  the}'  were  the 
true  people  of  God  and  the  legitimate  heirs 
of  Jehovah's  promises,  and  they  exhibited 
remarkable  vigor  and  wonderful  recuperative 
powers.  It  was  less  given  to  apostasy  from 
Jehovah  than  the  Kingdom  of  Israel,  and 
suffered  fewer  calamities.  The  indomitable 
spirit  of  its  people  enabled  them  to  defy  suc- 
cessively the  power  of  Assyria  and  of  Egypt, 
and  required  the  exertion  of  the  whole  force 
of  the  Babylonian  Empire  to  crush  it. 
Although  exposed  to  peril  from  the  attacks 
of  many  enemies,  because  of  its  situation 
between  the  two  great  rival  empires  of  Eg>'pt 
and  Assyria,  this  little  kindom  maintained 
its  existence  for  almost  four  centuries,  and 
was  governed  during  all  that  period  by 
monarchs  of  but  one  dj-nasty,  the  House  of 
David. 

The  reign  of  Rehoboam,  the  first  King  of 
Israel,  lasted  eighteen  years,  and  was  one 
of  disaster.  In  B.  C.  970,  Shishak,  King 
of  Egypt  (called  Sheshonk  in  Egj-ptian  his- 
tory), invaded  Judah  in  support  of  the  ten 
revolted  tribes,  captured  Jerusalem  and 
plundered  the  Temple  and  the  palace  of  their 
treasures,  and,  after  reducing  Judah  to  trib- 
ute, retired  from  the  country.  Rehoboam 
was  constantly  at  war  with  the  Kingdom  of 
I-srael,  and  during  his  reign  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  people  lapsed  into  idolatry. 

Abijah,  the  son  of  Rehoboam,  became 
King  of  Judah  upon  his  father's  death,  B. 
C.  958.  He  prosecuted  the  war  with  Israel 
with  great  vigor,  defeated  Jeroboam  at  Ze- 
maraim,  in  Mount  Ephraim,  and  captured 
Bethel,  Jeshanah  and  Ephraim,  which  closed 
the  struggle  for  ten  years.  Asa,  who  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne  upon  his  father  Abi- 
jah's  death,  in  B.  C.  955,  was  a  devout 
follower  of  Jehovah.  He  sternly  put  down 
idolatry,  and  replaced  the  treasures  of  the 
Temple  carried  away  hy  Shishak  with  rich 
offerings  of  gold  and  silver.  He  strength- 
ened the  fortifications  of  his  cities  and  in- 
creased his  army.     About  B.  C.  941  Judah 


was  invaded  by  a  strong  armj-  led  by  ' '  Te- 
rah  the  Egyptian,"  believed  to  be  Osorkon 
II.  of  Egj'pt;  but  Asa  routed  this  army  at 
Mareshah,  pursued  it  to  Gerar,  and  returned 
to  Jerusalem  with  the  spoils  of  vidlory  and 
of  the  cities  around  Gerar.  Urged  by  the 
prophet  Azariah,  Asa  summoned  a  convo- 
cation at  Jerusalem  in  B.  C.  940,  when  the 
nation  entered  into  a  solemn  covenant  to  be 
faithful  to  the  worship  of  Jehovah.  Many 
devout  Israelites  from  the  Northern  kingdom 
attended  this  a.s.semblage;  and  this  migration 
of  the  worshipers  of  Jehovah  in  Israel  to 
Judah  so  alarmed  Baasha,  King  of  Israel, 
that  he  fortified  Ramah,  on  the  road  between 
Judah  and  Israel,  to  check  this  emigration, 
and  made  war  upon  Asa,  who,  in  alarm, 
purcha.sed  the  alliance  of  Ben-hadad  I., 
King  of  Damascus,  with  the  treasures  of  the 
Temple.  Ben-hadad  at  once  invaded  Israel, 
and  the  Israelitish  army  was  withdrawn 
from  Judah  to  meet  this  invasion.  Asa  was 
engaged  in  constant  war  during  the  re- 
mainder of  his  reign,  and  died  in  B.  C.  916. 
A.sa's  son  and  successor,  Jehoshaphat, 
passed  much  of  his  reign  in  crushing  out 
idolatry,  and  in  fortifying  the  cities  of  his 
kingdom,  and  likewise  those  captured  by 
his  father  in  Mount  Ephraim.  Jeho.shaphat 
reigned  twenty-five  years.  He  reduced  the 
Moabites  and  the  Philistines  to  the  condition 
of  tributaries.  He  contracted  an  alliance 
with  Ahab,  King  of  Israel,  by  the  marriage 
of  his  eldest  son  Jehoram  with  Athaliah,  the 
daughter  of  Ahab  and  Jezebel,  a  union  pro- 
ducftive  of  very  much  trouble  for  Judah. 
He  aided  Ahab  in  his  wars  with  the  Syrians 
of  Damascus,  and  was  with  that  king  at 
Ramoth-Gilead,  where  Ahab  was  defeated 
and  killed  in  battle.  This  defeat  of  the 
forces  of  Judah  and  Israel  encouraged  the 
Moabites,  the  Anunonites  and  the  Edomites 
to  invade  Judah  in  great  force.  It  is  said 
that  the  invaders  were  miraculously  defeated 
by  Jehovah,  in  response  to  the  prayer  of  Je- 
hoshaphat. This  vidlorj-  of  Judah  terrified 
all  the  neighboring  nations  and  secured 
peace  for  the  remainder  of  Jehoshaphat's 
reign.  Jehoshaphat,  in  alliance  with  Aha- 
ziah.  King  of  Israel,  Ahab's  successor,  en- 


THE    KINGDOM    OF  JUDAH. 


deavored  to  renew  the  niaritinie  enterprises 
of  Solomon  h\  way  of  the  Red  Sea,  but  his 
fleet  was  wrecked  at  Eziou-geber,  it  is  said, 
in  punishment  for  his  alHance  with  Ahaziah, 
whereupon  Jehoshaphat  rehnquished  the 
enterprise. 

Jehoshaphat  died  B.  C.  8S9,  and  his  son 
Jehokam,  whom  he  had  associated  with  him 
in  the  government  for  three  years,  became 
his  successor.  Jehoram's  reign  was  short 
and  disastrous.  He  was  utterly  corrupted 
by  his  marriage  wtth  Athaliah,  the  daughter 
of  Ahab,  and  he  introduced  the  worship  of 
Ashtoreth,  with  all  its  immoral  rites,  into 
Judah.  To  avoid  a  disputed  succession  he 
murdered  all  his  brothers,  but  we  are  told 
that  Jehovah  punished  his  wickedness,  in- 
fli<5ting  dire  calamities  upon  his  kingdom. 
Edom  successfulh-  revolted  and  recovered  its 
independence  under  its  own  kings,  and, 
though  afterwards  defeated  in  battle  by 
Judah,  it  never  again  became  tributar\-  to 
it.  The  Philistines  and  the  Arabs,  who  had 
been  tributary-  to  Jeshoshaphat,  invaded 
Judah  and  captured  and  pillaged  Jerusalem, 
and  carried  away  all  the  king's  wives  ex- 
cept Athaliah,  and  all  his  children  except 
Ahaziah,  the  youngest  son. 

Ah.a.zi.\ii  came  to  the  throne  upon  his 
father's  death  in  B.  C.  885.  He  entered 
into  an  alliance  with  his  uncle,  Jehoram, 
King  of  Israel,  the  brother  of  his  mother, 
Athaliah.  He  was  with  his  uncle  in  the 
battle  of  Ramoth-Gilead,  where  Jehoram 
was  wounded,  and  was  slain  shortly  after- 
ward by  Jehu  in  the  revolt  which  made  that 
warrior  King  of  Israel,  B.  C.  884.  His 
mother,  Athaliah,  became  his  successor 
and  slew  all  the  ro}-al  family  of  Judah.  ex- 
cept Joash,  a  newly -bom  infant,  the  youngest 
son  of  Ahaziah,  and  made  herself  queen. 
Joash  was  hidden  in  the  Temple  by  his  aunt, 
the  wife  of  the  High  Priest,  Jehoiada. 
Athaliah  reigned  six  years,  during  which 
Joash   remained   concealed  in  the  Temple. 

At  length  Jehoiada  headed  a  rebellion,  and 
was  supported  by  the  army  and  the  people. 
Joash  was  proclaimed  king  and  Athaliah 
was  put  to  death,  B.  C.  878.  Jehoiada  be- 
came  regent.      For   the    first   twenty-three 


years  of  his  reign,  during  whicli  period  Je- 
hoiada was  his  chief  coun.selor,  Joash  admin- 
istered the  government  with  success,  and 
the  kingdom  was  prosperous.  Idolatry-  was 
stamped  out  and  mercilessly  punished.  Jo- 
ash repaired  the  Temple,  ami  put  an  end 
to  the  peculations  of  the  Levites  who  had 
.squandered  the  sacred  funds.  After  the 
death  of  Jehoiada,  Joash  plunged  into  idol- 
atry-. Hazael,  King  of  Damascus,  attacked 
Judah  and  compelled  Joash  to  purcha,se 
peace  by  surrendering  all  the  treasures  of 
the  Temple  and  the  palace,  including  the 
sacred  vessels. 

In  B.  C.  839  Joash  was  murdered  by  two 
of  his  servants  and  was  succeeded  by  his 
son  Am.azi.\h,  who  at  once  executed  his 
father's  assassins.  Amaziah  attempted  to 
reconquer  Edom,  which  had  revolted  from 
Jehoram.  He  defeated  the  Edomites  and 
took  their  capital  Petra,  where  he  massacred 
ten  thousand  Edomites,  but  he  failed  to 
subdue  Edom.  He  made  war  on  Jehoash, 
King  of  Israel,  but  was  defeated  and  taken 
pri.soner  at  Beth-shemesh.  The  King  of 
Israel  led  his  captive  in  triumph  to  Jerusa- 
lem, where  he  plundered  the  Temple  and 
the  palace,  and  broke  down  the  north  wall 
of  the  city.  After  taking  hostages  for  the 
future  peaceable  conduct  of  Judah,  Jehoash 
returned  to  Samaria.  Amaziah  grew  so 
tyraunical  and  corrupt  in  his  last  years  that 
his  subjedls  hated  him,  and  he  was  finally 
assassinated  at  Lachish,  B.  C.  809. 

Amaziah' s  successor  was  his  son  Uzzi.\H, 
who  was  a  great  and  warlike  monarch.  At 
the  beginning  of  his  reign  he  recovered  and 
rebuilt  the  ancient  port  of  Elath,  at  the 
head  of  the  ea.steru  arm  of  the  Red  Sea. 
He  reigned  si.Kty-two  years,  during  which 
his  kingdom  enjoyed  great  prosperity.  He 
subdued  the  greater  part  of  Philistia,  and 
received  tribute  from  Amnion.  His  arro- 
gance in  assuming  sacerdotal  functions,  we 
are  told,  was  punished,  as  he  was  attacked 
with  lepro.sy  while  offering  incense  in  the 
Temple.  This  obliged  him  to  remain  se- 
cluded, and  for  the  remaining  six  or  .seven 
years  of  his  reign  his  son  and  successor, 
Jotham,  conducted  the  government. 


378 


ANCIENT   HISrORY.—  rHE    HEBREWS. 


JoTHAM  became  sole  sovereign  upon  his 
father's  death  in  B.  C.  757.  He  was  a  pious 
and  prosperoiis  monarch,  but  during  his 
reign  the  people  of  Judah  grew  more  and 
more  corrupt.  Jotham  fortified  Jerusalem, 
and  compelled  the  Ammonites  to  pay  trib- 
ute. In  the  latter  part  of  his  reign  Pekah, 
King  of  Israel,  and  Rezin,  King  of  Damas- 
cus, began  the  war  with  Judah  which  was 
eventually  so  disastrous  to  them. 

At  his  death,  in  B.  C.  742,  Jotham  was 
succeeded  by  his  son,  Ahaz,  who  reestab- 
lished the  worship  of  Baal  and  corrupted 
the  people.  The  war  began  against  Judah 
by  the  Kings  of  Israel  and  Damascus  during 
the  reign  of  Jotham  was  prosecuted  with 
vigor;  and  Ahaz  prevailed  upon  Tiglath- 
Pileser  II.  to  come  to  his  aid,  purchasing 
his  powerful  help  by  becoming  his  tributary. 
The  Assyrians  invaded  Syria,  took  Damas- 
cus, and  put  an  end  to  the  Syrian  kingdom. 
Israel  was  also  severely  chastised  and  forced 
to  make  peace. 

Ahaz  died  in  B.  C.  726,  and  his  son  Hez- 
EKiAH  became  his  succes.sor.  Hezekiah  was 
one  of  the  best  kings  of  Judah,  and  began 
his  reign  by  restoring  the  pure  worship  of 
Jehovah  and  destroying  all  the  idols.  He 
was  a  wise  and  virtuous  ruler,  and  "did 
that  which  was  right  in  the  sight  of  Jeho- 
vah." He  defeated  the  Philistines,  and 
boldly  attempted  to  cast  off  the  Assyrian 
yoke.  Thereupon  Sennacherib,  King  of 
Assyria,  attacked  him  and  forced  him  to  re- 
main a  tributary  of  Assj^ria;  but  he  soon 
again  revolted  against  Sennacherib  and  en- 
tered into  an  alliance  with  Egypt,  then  at 
war  with  Assyria. 

In  B.  C.  699  Sennacherib  again  invaded 
Judah,  with  the  design  of  crushing  the  lit- 
tle kingdom  before  invading  Egj'pt,  which 
he  resolved  to  chastise  severely  for  assist- 
ing his  rebellious  vassal.  He  marched 
along  the  coast  to  the  southern  extremity 
of  the  Philistine  plain,  the  cities  of  the  low 
country  falling  into  his  possession,  and, 
having  captured  Lachish,  he  besieged  Lib- 
nah.  In  the  meantime  he  sent  a  message 
to  Hezekiah  demanding  his  unconditional 
submission,  blasphemouslj' asserting  that  Je- 


hovah was  unable  to  protecfl  him  against  the 
vengeance  of  Assyria.  Hezekiah  went  to 
the  Temple,  where  he  turned  in  prayer  to 
Jehovah  and  "spread  Sennacherib's  letter 
before  the  Lord. "  It  is  said  that  the  de- 
strudlion  of  "one  hundred  fourscore  and 
five  thousand"  of  Sennacherib's  army  at 
Pelusium,  while  camping  opposite  the 
Egyptian  army,  was  the  miraculous  an- 
swer which  Jehovah  gave  to  Hezekiah's 
prayer.  Sennacherib  hastily  returned  to 
Assyria,  dismayed  and  disheartened.  The 
prophet  Isaiah  is  represented  as  announcing 
the  purposes  of  Jehovah  in  advance  and  as 
foretelling  the  fate  of  Sennacherib's  army. 

Hezekiah,  at  his  death  in  B.  C.  697,  was 
succeeded  by  his  son  Manasseh,  who 
reigned  fifty-five  years,  and  was  one  of  the 
most  wicked  of  all  the  Kings  of  Judah. 
He  restored  everj^  sj'stem  of  idolatry  that 
had  ever  been  pracfticed  in  Judah  or  Israel, 
and  these  abominable  rites  became  so  firmly 
rooted  in  the  nation  that  the  Temple  was 
closed  and  the  laws  of  Moses  were  almost 
forgotten  by  the  people,  while  the  worship- 
ers of  Jehovah  were  actually  persecuted  in 
the  Holy  City  itself.  The  prophets  de- 
nounced this  apostasy  in  the  severest  terms, 
and  were  cruelly  persecuted  by  the  idola- 
trous monarch.  Isaiah  is  believed  to  have 
been  among  the  first  victims  put  to  death  by 
Manasseh. 

About  B.  C.  577  Esar-haddon,  King  of 
Assj'ria,  suspecting  Manasseh  of  a  design  to 
rebel  against  him,  deposed  him  and  carried 
him  captive  to  Babylon.  We  are  told  that 
Manasseh  was  brought  to  repentance  by  the 
hardships  of  his  captivity,  and  that  Jehovah 
was  pleased  to  hear  his  prayers.  Esar- 
haddon  generously  pardoned  him  and  re- 
stored him  to  his  throne  as  a  vassal  mon- 
arch. Thereafter  Manasseh  had  a  long  and 
prosperous  reign,  and  exerted  himself  to  his 
utmost  to  suppress  idolatr}-  and  to  restore  the 
religion  of  Jehovah.  He  likewise  strength- 
ened the  defenses  of  Jerusalem.  About  this 
time  the  colonization  of  the  territory  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Israel  by  direction  of  the  As- 
syrian monarch  took  place. 

Amon,  the  son  of  Manasseh,  succeeded 


THE    KINCDOM    OF  Jl  'DA IF. 


379 


to  the  throne  of  Judah  upon  his  father's 
death  in  B.  C.  642.  Anion  sought  to  re- 
store idolatry,  but  was  assassinated  after  a 
short  reign  of  two  years,  and  was  succeeded 
by  his  son,  Jcisiaii,  a  boy  of  eight  years, 
B.  C.  640.  Josiah  at  once  set  about  up- 
rooting idolatr\-  and  restoring  the  worship 
of  Jehovah.  He  reigned  thirty-one  years, 
and  was  one  of  the  best  of  the  Kings  of 
Judah.  In  his  reign  the  Assyrian  Empire 
fell.  In  B.  C.  608  Neko,  King  of  Egj-pt, 
declared  war  against  Babylon,  invaded  Pal- 
estine, conquered  the  Philistine  cities,  and 
advanced  along  the  Mediterranean  coast  of 
Palestine  to  Carmel,  thence  crossing  the 
great  plain  of  Esdraelon  and  marching  to- 
ward the  Euphrates.  Josiah  assembled  his 
anny,  and,  in  accordance  with  his  dut}-  to 
his  suzerain,  the  King  of  Babylon,  prepared 
to  resi.st  the  advance  of  the  Egyptian  mon- 
arch. Neko  warned  him  to  desist,  as  his 
expedition  was  simply  directed  against  Ba- 
bylon; but  the  Jewish  king  persisted  in  his 
opposition,  and  was  defeated  and  .slain  in 
the  battle  of  Megiddo,  nearly  on  the  verj- 
spot  where  Deborah  and  Barak  had  won 
their  great  vicflorj-  over  the  Caananites  about 
six  centuries  before. 

Jehoahaz,  the  second  .son  of  Josiah,  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne  of  Judah,  B.  C.  608. 
Jehoahaz  had  been  made  king  by  the  people, 
but  reigned  only  three  months,  when  he  was 
dethroned  by  Neko,  who  bestowed  the 
crown  on  Jehoi.\kiii,  the  eldest  son  of 
Josiah,  B.  C.  608.  Jehoiakim  reigned  four 
years  as  a  tributarj-  of  the  King  of  Egypt, 
when  Judah  was  forced  to  submit  to  the  su- 
premacy of  Bab\lon,  in  consequence  of  the 
great  vidtory  of  the  Babylonian  crown- 
prince  Nebuchadnezzar  over  the  Egyptian 
king  at  Carchemish,  B.  C.  604.  Many  He- 
brew youths,  the  prophet  Daniel  being 
among  them,  were  carried  captive  to  Baby- 
lon by  the  conquering  Nebuchadnezzar,  and 
were  there  educated  "in  all  the  learning  of 
the  Chaldaeans."  Daniel  arrived  at  high 
honors  under  Nebuchadnezzar,and  was  made 
chief  of  the  order  of  "wise  men;"  and  it 
was  at  Bab}-lon  that  he  delivered  his  pro- 
phetic visions,  and  that  he  foretold  the  com- 


ing of  the  Messiah.  In  B.  C.  602  Jehoiakim 
revolted  against  the  Babylonian  supremacy 
and  endeavored  to  recover  his  absolute  inde- 
pendence. The  projjhet  Jeremiah  uttered 
his  first  predictions  during  the  reign  of  Jo- 
siah, and  continued  his  prophecies  during 
the  reigns  of  his  sons,  Jehoahaz  and  Jehoia- 
kim. 

Jehoiakim  opened  his  rebellion  against 
Babylon  inider  favorable  auspices.  He 
was  promi.sed  the  aid  of  Egypt;  and  Phoe- 
nicia, under  the  leadership  of  Tyre,  had 
also  risen  in  revolt  against  the  power  of 
Babylon.  In  B.  C.  598  Nebuchadnezzar, 
who  had  been  King  of  Babylon  for  six 
years,  took  the  field  against  both  Phoenicia 
and  Judah,  determined  to  reduce  the.se  re- 
bellious provinces  to  submission.  Eirst 
entering  Phoenicia,  he  laid  siege  to  Tyre, 
but  finding  it  too  strong  to  be  reduced  speed- 
ily, he  left  a  part  of  his  army  to  continue 
the  siege,  while  he  himself  led  the  remain- 
der against  Judah  and  moved  upon  Jerusa- 
lem, which  submitted  upon  his  approach. 
Jehoiakim  was  put  to  death,  and  his  body 
was  treated  with  indignity,  contrarj-  to  gen- 
eral Oriental  usage,  thus  fulfilling  Jere- 
miah's prophecy  concerning  this  monarch. 

JEHOIACHIN,  the  son  of  Jehoiakim,  a 
mere  youth,  was  placed  upon  the  throne  of 
Judah  b}'  Nebuchadnezzar,  who  allowed 
him  to  reign  only  three  months,  when,  dis- 
trusting him,  he  carried  him  to  Babylon, 
and  placed  his  uncle,  Zedekiah,  the  brother 
of  Jehoiakim  and  the  son  of  Josiah,  upon 
the  throne.  Zedekiah  remained  loyal  to  the 
Babylonian  monarch  for  eight  years,  and 
then  entered  into  an  alliance  with  Uaphris, 
King  of  Egj^pt,  who  agreed  to  aid  him  with 
a  powerful  arm>'  in  his  effort  to  throw  off 
the  Babylonian  j-oke;  and  Zedekiah  at  once 
rai.sed  the  standard  of  rebellion,  B.  C.  589. 

The  siege  of  Tyre  was  still  in  progress, 
and  Nebuchadnezzar  led  a  large  armj'' 
against  Jerusalem,  defeating  the  Eg>'ptian 
king  in  his  effort  to  relieve  his  ally,  the 
King  of  Judah.  and  took  Jerusalem  by  storm. 
Zedekiah  and  the  remnant  of  his  army  fled, 
and  were  overtaken  in  the  plain  of  Jericho. 
Zedekiah  was  made  a  pri.soner  and  his  troops 


;oo 


ANCIENT  HISrORY.—  THE    HEBREWS. 


were  cut  to  pieces.  Nebuchadnezzar  stained 
his  triumph  by  the  most  shocking  atrocities, 
causing  Zedekiah's  sous  to  be  slain  before 
the  eyes  of"  their  father,  and  the  eyes  of 
the  unfortunate  monarch  himself  to  be  put 
out,  after  which  he  was  carried  captive  to 
Babylon;  while    the  city  of  Jerusalem  and 


the  House  of  David.  This  work  of  destruc- 
tion was  bewailed  by  the  prophet  Jeremiah 
in  his  Lamentations. 

Judsea  was  placed  under  a  Babylonian 
governor,  who  was  murdered  soon  afterward. 
His  as.sa.ssins  found  refuge  in  Egypt,  taking 
with  them  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  who  had 


the  Temple  were  then  pillaged  and  burned, 
and  the  population,  except  a  small  renmaut, 
were  carried  into  the  seventy  years'  ' '  Baby- 
lonian Captivity,"  being  transported  as  col- 
onists to  Chaldaea,  B.  C.  586.  Thus  ended 
the  Kingdom  of  Judah  and  the  dynasty  of 


sought  to  dissuade  them  from  their  danger- 
ous course.  The  Jews  afterwards  became 
involved  in  the  fate  of  Egypt,  and  the  rem- 
nant left  in  Judsea  were  carried  into  captivitj' 
in  Babylon  about  the  same  time,  thus  ahno.st 
entirely  depopulating  the  coinitry. 


BABYLONIAN   CAPTIl'/rV   AND    RETURN. 
HEBREW   KINGS. 


381 


BEGAN  TO  REIGN. 


KINGS  OF  THE  UNITED  MONARCHY. 


B.  C.  1095 
"  1055 
"      1015 


975 
958 
956 
954 
953 
930 


Saui, — Reigned  40  years. 
David — Reigned  40  years. 
Solomon — Reigned  40  years. 


KINGS  OF  JUDAH. 


Rehoboam 

Abijah. 

Asa. 


KINGS  OF  ISRAEL. 


Jeroboam. 


Nad.\b. 

Baasha. 

Elah. 


929 I ZiMRI. 

"  Omri. 

918 I ;  AH.\B. 

916 I  JEHOSHAPHAT.  ! 

S97 ] [  Ahaziah. 

S96 Jehoram. 

892 !  Jehoram. 


S85 
884 
878 
856 

839 
838 

S23 
809 
772 


762 
760 
757 
742 

730 
726 
721 
697 
642 
640 
609 

598 
597 
586 


Ah.\ziah. 
Athaliah 

JOASH. 


Amaziah. 


Azariah,  or  t'zziAH. 


Jehu. 
Jehoahaz. 

JO.^SH. 


JOTHAM. 

Ahaz. 


Hezekiah. 


M.\NASSEH. 

Amon. 

JOSIAH. 

JEH0.\H.\Z. 

jEHOI.\KIM. 

jehoiachin. 
Zedekiah. 
Babylonian  Captivity. 


jEROBO.\M  II. 

Zachariah. 

Sh.\i.lum. 

Menahem. 

Pekahiah. 

Pekah. 


Hoshea. 
Assyrian  Capti\-ity. 


SECTION    VII.— BABYLONIAN    CAPTIVITY  AND    RETURN. 


NEBUCHADNEZZAR  colonized 
in  Chaldaea  the  Jews  whom  he 
removed  from  their  own  homes. 
They  were  comforted  in  their 
captivity  by  the  promises  said 
to  have  been  made  by  Jehovah,  "through 
the  mouths  of  his  hoh'  prophets,"  that  he 
did  not  intend  to  extenninate  His  "chosen 
people"  as  a  nation,  but  simply  to  chasten 

]— 24.-U.  H. 


them  for  their  disobedience  and  transgres- 
sions, and  that  he  would  restore  them  to 
their  own  laud  after  they  had  suffered  the 
chastisement  He  was  then  iiiflicling  upon 
them. 

During  the  Babylonian  captivity  of  the 
Jews  the  Babylonian  limpire  was  over- 
thrown by  Cyrus  the  Great,  and  the  Baby- 
lonian dominions  were  absorbed  in  the  great 


382 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


Medo-Persian  Empire.  When  Cjtus  cap- 
tured Babylon  in  B.  C.  s^S  he  there  found  the 
Jews  "an  oppressed  race,  in  whose  religion 
he  found  a  considerable  resemblance  to  his 
own."  He  became  ardently  interested  in 
these  people,  and  learning  that  many  of  them 
strongly  desired  to  return  to  their  own  land, 
he  issued  an  edidt  pennitting  them  to  do  so. 
In  pursuance  of  this  edicfl,  a  Jewish  colony 
of  42,360  persons,  besides  their  serv^ants,  re- 
turned to  Jerusalem  from  Babylonia  in  B.  C. 
535.  The}^  proceeded  diredlly  to  Jerusalem 
under  the  leadership  of  Zerubbabel,  a  de- 
scendant of  the  legitimate  ro}-al  race;  and 
most  of  them  at  first  settled  on  the  site  and 
in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  Holy  City. 
The  far  greater  portion  of  the  Jewish  nation 
yet  remained  in  Chaldaea. 

The  restored  Jews  under  Zerubbabel  at 
once  devoted  their  efforts  to  rebuilding  the 
Holy  City  and  the  Temple  and  restoring  the 
worship  of  Jehovah  and  the  Mosaic  laws. 
They  began  the  work  in  the  j'ear  of  their 
return,  but  were  stopped  by  the  interference 
of  the  Samaritans,  who  were  a  mixed  race 
occupying  the  old  territory'  of  Ephraim  and 
Manasseh  and  descended  from  foreign  col- 
onists settled  in  that  country  by  Esar-had- 
don.  King  of  Assyria.  The  Samaritans, 
when  the  Jews  had  returned,  offered  to 
unite  with  them  in  rebuilding  the  Temple, 
desiring  to  make  it  a  common  sancftuary  for 
both  races.  They  claimed  to  be  descendants 
of  the  ancient  tribes  of  Israel,  but  the  Jews 
repudiated  their  claim  and  ' '  would  have  no 
dealings  with  the  Samaritans."  In  con- 
sequence of  this  refusal  to  allow  them  a 
share  in  the  work  of  rebuilding  the  Temple, 
the  Samaritans  became  the  bitter  enemies  of 
the  Jews,  and  endeavored  by  every  possible 
means  to  thwart  their  work.  They  suc- 
ceeded in  delaying  the  rebuilding  of  the  Tem- 
ple and  the  city  for  a  time  in  B.  C.  522,  but 
it  was  resumed  by  order  of  the  great  Per- 
sian king,  Darius  Hj-staspes,  in  B.  C.  519, 
and  the  Temple  was  finished  and  dedicated 
in  B.  C.  515. 

Through  the  favor  shown  them  by  Darius 
Hystaspes,  the  Jews  were  enabled  to  firmly 
establish  themselves  in  their  old  homes,  in 


spite  of  the  jealousy  and  hostility  of  the  Sa- 
maritans and  other  neighboring  nations. 
Xerxes  the  Great,  the  successor  of  Darius 
Hystaspes  on  the  throne  of  Persia,  notwith- 
standing that  he  was  favorably  disposed  to- 
wards the  Jews,  almost  caused  their  exter- 
mination by  weakly  giving  his  consent  to  a 
plot  with  that  design  formed  by  his  prime- 
minister,  Haman.  This  plot  was  detected 
by  Mordecai,  a  Jew  and  the  uncle  of  Esther, 
the  favorite  wife  of  Xerxes.  Through  the 
efforts  of  Mordecai  and  Esther,  King  Xerxes 
was  prevailed  upon  to  put  the  Jews  on  their 
guard  and  to  pennit  them  to  defend  them- 
selves against  their  enemies.  Consequently 
the  plot  resulted  in  the  death  of  Haman, 
who  was  hanged  from  the  same  scaffold 
which  he  had  designed  for  others,  and  the 
Jews  successfuUj'  defended  themselves  in 
every  portion  of  the  empire.  Taking  ad- 
vantage of  the  king's  permission,  they 
caused  their  most  prominent  antagonists  to 
be  put  to  death.  This  event,  which  occurred 
about  B.  C.  473,  is  still  commemorated  in 
the  Feast  of  Purim. 

Ezra,  a  Jewish  priest,  who  enjoj-ed  the 
favor  of  the  King  of  Persia,  led  a  second 
colony  of  his  countrymen  from  Babylon  to 
Jerusalem  in  B.  C.  458.  As  soon  as  he  ar- 
rived he  stopped  the  custom  of  inter- 
marriages between  his  countrymen  and  the 
neighboring  nations,  which  had  already'  as- 
sumed proportions  so  formidable  as  to 
threaten  the  extincftion  of  the  pure  Jewish 
race.  Ezra  made  other  essential  reforms  in 
church  and  state,  and  had  the  books  of 
the  Old  Testament  definitely  and  authori- 
tatively arranged. 

Nehemiah,  a  Jewish  favorite  of  the  Per- 
sian king  Artaxerxes  Longimanus,  the  suc- 
cessor of  Xerxes,  who  had  been  the  king's 
cupbearer,  arrived  at  Jerusalem,  having 
been  given  permission  to  restore  the  walls 
and  fortifications  of  the  Holy  City.  In 
spite  of  the  king's  orders,  the  surrounding 
nations  tried  to  stop  the  work,  but  the  vigi- 
lance of  Nehemiah  caused  his  countrj-men 
to  perfonn  their  labors  under  arms,  and  thus 
thwarted  the  plans  of  their  enemies.  The 
Jewish  people    were    divided   between  the 


llAliYLONIAN    CAPTIi-lTY   AKD    RETURN. 


383 


Holy  Citj-  and  the  royal  districts,  after  the 
walls  and  fortifications  of  Jerusalem  were 
restored.  The  laws  of  Moses  were  now  re- 
established in  Judtca.  Nehemiah,  as  High 
Priest  of  his  people,  was  appointed  gover- 
nor of  Judtea,  which  had  followed  the 
fortunes  of  the  other  Babylonian  domin- 
ions in  becoming  a  province  of  the  vast 
Medo-Persian  Empire ;  and  thenceforth 
Judaea  was  usually  governed  by  the  High 
Priest.  Judaea  was  afterwards  joined  to  the 
Persian  satrapy  of  Syria.  The  Persian 
monarchs  allowed  the  Jews  to  manage  their 
domestic  affairs  in  their  own  way,  so  long  as 
they  paid  their  tribute  regularly. 

The  Babylonian  Captivity  thoroughly 
cured  the  Jews  as  a  nation  of  their  fondness 
for  idolatn,-,  and  they  were  therefore  careful 
thenceforth  to  shun  idolatry  and  to  avoid  all 
intercourse  with  idolatrous  nations.  They 
ever  afterwaid  remained  steadfast  in  the 
worship  of  Jehovah  and  faithfully  observed 
the  laws  of  Moses. 

From  the  time  of  the  return  of  the  Jews 
from  the  Babylonian  Captivity,  the  ancient 
territorj^  of  Judah  was  called //<a'«'«,  and  its 
inhabitants  were  namedyi?7t'5.  The  Jews  in 
Babjlonia  returned  bj-  degrees  to  Palestine, 
but  manj'  remained  in  Babj-lonia  and  kept 
up  a  constant  intercourse  with  their  brethren 
in  Judaea  to  the  latest  period. 

Here  the  Old  Testament  history-  of  the 
Jews  ends,  and  we  will  give  the  remaining 
portions  of  Jewish  history  as  it  is  connected 
with  the  history^  of  other  nations. 

The  Hebrew  race  contributed  little  to  an- 
cient civilization  in  the  way  of  science,  art 
or  politics.  Such  was  not  the  mission  of 
the  Israelites.  The  world  has  received  no 
impulse  from  their  national  achievements  or 
history  in  this  respe(fl.  But  their  religious 
institutions,  spiritual  ideas  and  moral  teach- 
ings have  exerted  a  mightj'  influence  on 
modem  civilization.  The  sacred  writings 
of  the  Jews,  and  the  sublime  works  of  the 
Hebrew  bards  and  sages,  reverenced  b)-  us 
as  the  body  of  Old  Testament  literature, 
have  become  the  permanent  possession  of 
all  mankind,  and  their  influence  pervades 
the  most  civilized  nations  of  the  globe. 


Moses  was  the  earliest  sacred  historian, 
as  well  as  the  lawgiver  and  founder  of  the 
Hebrew  state.  David's  Psalms  are  among 
the  mo.st  soul-stirring  productions  of  lyric 
poetry,  and  vSolomon's  Proverbs  are  among 
the  wisest  maxims  of  antiquity.  The  most 
noted  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  were  Elijah, 
Elisha,  Jonah,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Daniel  and 
Ezekiel.  Isaiah,  in  his  .sublime  strains  of 
lyric  poetry,  foretold  the  coming  of  the  Mes- 
siah. Jeremiah  denounced  divine  judgments 
on  his  people  for  their  apostasy  from  Jeho- 
vah, and  in  his  Lamentations  vented  his 
sorrow  for  their  downfall.  Daniel  and  Eze- 
kiel, during  their  captivity  in  Babylon,  de- 
livered their  prophetic  visions,  and  Daniel 
arrived  at  high  honors  under  the  Babylonian 
kings.  He  predicted  the  time  of  the  advent 
of  the  Messiah  with  such  precision  that  a 
general  expedtation  of  his  appearance  pre- 
vailed among  the  Jews  at  the  time  of  Christ's 
coming. 

Among  the  sacred  places  or  structures  be- 
fore the  Captivity  were  the  Tabernacle,  with 
its  altar  and  brazen  laver,  its  golden  candle- 
stick, table  of  show-bread,  and  Ark  of  the 
Covenant;  and  Jerusalem,  the  Holy  City,  with 
its  Mount  Moriah  and  Temple,  and  the 
sancfluary  of  that  Temple.  The  Taberna- 
cle was  the  place  where  public  worship  was 
conducfted  from  the  time  of  Moses  to  the 
time  of  Solomon;  and  consisted  of  three 
parts — the  area,  or  court,  a  space  of  about 
one  hundred  feet  long  and  sevent5'-five  feet 
wide;  the  Tabernacle  proper  located  in  the 
middle  of  the  western  side  of  the  court,  be- 
ing an  oblong  square  of  about  forty-five  feet 
long  and  fifteen  feet  broad,  covered  on  every 
part,  and  also  walled  up  with  boards ;  and 
the  entrance,  which  was  closed  by  means  of 
a  curtain  made  of  cotton. 

Among  the  sacred  seasons  of  the  Hebrews 
were  the  Sabbath,  the  sabbatical  year,  the 
year  of  Jubilee,  and  the  g^eat  festivals  of  the 
Passover,  Pentecost  and  the  Tabernacles.  The 
Passover  was  the  Feast  of  Unleavened 
Bread.  The  Pentecost,  the  fiftieth  from  the 
second  da>'  of  the  Passover,  is  also  called 
the  Feast  of  the  Weeks,  because  it  followed 
a  succession  of  weeks.     It  was  a  festival  of 


384 


ANCIENT  HISTORY.— THE    HEBREWS. 


thanks  for  the  han^est.  The  Feast  of  the 
Tabernacles,  celebrated  from  the  fifteenth 
to  the  twenty-third  of  the  seventh  mouth, 
was  to  commemorate  the  Wanderings  in  the 
Wilderness,  and  was  also  in  honor  of  the 
vintage  and  the  gathering  of  the  fruits.  It 
was  a  season  of  joy  and  gladness. 

The  Israelites  considered  themselves  as 
sacred  and  holj' — as  the  special  guardians  of 
the  only  true  religion;  but  the  tribe  of  Levi, 
and  particularly  the  priests  of  that  tribe, 
called  Levites,  were  more  especially  viewed 
in  that  light.  Aaron  and  his  posterity,  who 
were  from  this  tribe,  were  consecrated  to  the 
priesthood,  who  were  given  a  close  access  to 
the  throne  of  Jehovah,  in  the  Holy  Place. 
The  other  Levites  performed  the  inferior  re- 
ligious duties,  but  were  allowed  sen-ants  for 
the  more  menial  oiSces.  The  High  Priest 
sustained  the  most  exalted  office  of  the  tribe. 

Among  sacred  things  we  may  name  sacri- 
fices, of  which  there  were  many  kinds  and 
for  different  purposes — purification ,  the:  first- 
born, ths.  first  fruits,  tithes,  oaths  and  vows. 
Concerning  these  there  were  many  particular 
regulations.  One  peculiar  rite  was  the 
sending  forth  of  the  scape-goat  into  the 
wilderness,  in  atonement  for  national  sins. 
After  the  lustration  of  the  Holy  Place,  the 
Tabernacle  and  the  altar,  the  High  Priest 
was  diredted  to  procure  a  live  goat,  lay  both 
hands  upon  his  head,  confess  over  him  all 
the  iniquities,  transgressions  and  sins  of  the 
nation,  putting  the  blame  for  them  on  the 
goat,  and  then  letting  him  go  free  in  the 
desert. 

The  Hebrews  were  taught  that  Jehovah 
is  the  Only  God — the  Creator  and  Ruler  of 
the  entire  universe,  to  whom  all  men  owe 
gratitude  and  obedience.  The^-  were  only 
admonished  to  abstain  from  such  kinds  of 
food  as  were  regarded  unclean,  to  keep  them- 
selves free  from  moral  pollution,  and  to  be 
pure  as  God  is  pure.  They  were  taught  to 
be  kind  to  the  poor,  to  the  widow  and  the 
orphan.  They  were  forbidden  to  utter  false- 
hoods and  to  spread  scandal.  They  were 
not  allowed  to  curse  such  magistrates  as 
they  disliked.  Thus  the  Laws  of  Moses 
generally  had  a  good  moral  tendency.     The 


laws  respecfting  circumcision,  cleanliness, 
tithes,  usurj',  .slaver>',  property,  marriage, 
theft,  war,  and  the  like,  were  adapted  to  the 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  Hebrew  nation. 
These  laws  were   rigidly    enforced. 

Polygamy  was  prevalent  among  the  He- 
brews from  the  Mosaic  times.  Moses  en- 
deavored to  check  this  institution  by  narra- 
ting the  original  institution  of  marriage, 
and  showing  the  evils  resulting  from  a  plu- 
rality of  wives — evils  which  are  very  great 
in  all  Asiatic  countries.  There  were  like- 
wise some  special  regulations  restraining 
polygamy,  and  the  e\-il  considerably  dimin- 
ished in  the  progress  of  time. 

Agriculture,  and  likewise  the  keeping  of 
flocks  and  herds,  prevailed  in  the  primitive 
ages,  and  the  Mosaic  laws  speciallj'  favored 
the  tillage  of  the  soil.  This  art  was  held  in 
high  esteem  among  the  Hebrews.  The 
naturally-fertile  soil  of  Palestine  was  made 
more  fertile  bj'  the  care  taken  to  improve  it. 
Such  grains  as  wheat,  millet,  spelt,  barley, 
beans,  lentils,  meadow-cumin,  etc.,  were 
cultivated;  while  flax,  cotton,  melons,  cu- 
cumbers and  rice  were  likewise  raised.  The 
beasts  of  burden  used  in  agriculture  were 
bulls,  cows  and  asses.  The  vine  was  ex- 
tensiveh'  cultivated. 

Agriculture  was  the  chief  pursuit  of  the 
Hebrews.  Every"  .seventh  year  the  lands 
were  left  untilled,  and  whatever  grew  of  it- 
self was  to  be  given  to  the  destitute.  The 
houses  were  mostly  poor  and  low,  and  were 
built  of  sun-dried  mud  or  unhewn  stones 
until  the  time  of  the  kings,  when  more  at- 
tention was  devoted  to  archite(5ture.  The 
street-doors  were  adorned  with  inscriptions 
from  the  Laws  of  Moses.  The  windows  had 
no  glass,  but  were  latticed.  The  roofs  were 
flat,  and  the  people  often  resorted  to  them 
for  cool  air,  and  e\-en  slept  there  in  summer 
time.  Domestic  implements  were  rare  and 
of  simple  construcftion.  Grain  was  ground 
in  hand-mills  by  the  women.  Olive-oil  was 
used  in  lamps  to  give  light.  The  to\\'ns 
presented  a  mean  appearance,  because  of  the 
want  of  public  buildings.  The  Hebrew 
books,  like  those  of  other  ancient  nations. 
were  in  the  form  of  rolls. 


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